Opinion: Electric cars, improved automatics will soon kill manual transmissions

About 1.2 percent of new cars sold in North America are equipped with a manual transmission. No, I am not happy about it. And yes, for more than a decade journalists have been sounding the alarm about the death of the manual transmission.

As inconvenient as it is and as alarming as it sounds, it is time we all accepted how little life the manual transmission has as a mass product. The noble manual transmission is now simply exposed to too many threats to survive much longer.

Electric cars are such a threat. A large. Like the advent of electronically controlled fuel injection, the automotive industry is also facing a massive change in the production of cars.

And just as “enthusiasts” complained about the loss of carburetors in favor of the more efficient fuel injection systems, there is a kind of puritanical revolt by cars against electric vehicles. A legitimate point of criticism against electric vehicles, however, is that the inclusion of a manual transmission is essentially impossible or at least completely unnecessary.

Electric vehicles don’t have a gearbox because they don’t have a flywheel because they don’t have an engine. The only type of shift you get in a Tesla, for example, is a differential that controls power distribution and cornering.

Theoretically, you could simulate an automatic paddle shift with an electric motor, but in reality you would only deliberately slow down your acceleration and be less energy efficient in the process. And there would still be no clutch, so what’s the point?

No manufacturer will remain unaffected by electrification. Just this month, Dodge announced it would build an “electric muscle car,” and Aston Martin announced plans for an electric sports car and SUV in 2025.

But the manual transmission is also struggling to find an audience outside of electric cars. And that’s because automatics get really good. Ten years ago, as a serious performance enthusiast, you had to buy the manual version of every car because the automatic “slush box” was just too stupid to deliver effectively.

In fact, manual transmissions were nearly three times as popular in North America in 2010 – about 3.4 percent of cars sold that year had a manual transmission.

It was around that time, however, that things began to change as cars like the Nissan GT-R proved that you can actually improve performance and all-selling time from zero to 60 mph if you remove the possibility of driver error exclude those associated with a manual transmission. Of course, top performers like the Corvette and the Toyota Supra have since completely given up the manual transmission option and have become very, very fast in the process.

Even with nameplates that still offer a manual, such as the Ford Mustang and the Porsche 911, the automatic variants are far faster than their “standard” counterparts. Sometimes by up to half a second to 60 mph (that might as well be a year in terms of cars).

Granted, there’s more to achieving these impressive times than just fixing driver errors. Modern automatics are juiced up by the manufacturers with a few gear tricks to ensure that they overshadow the manuals far.

Why do manufacturers want the automatic transmission to win? First, it means that even useless drivers like you or me can get into any car and feel like a superstar driver. If you’re spending more than $ 100,000 on your new Porsche, that desire is certainly understandable.

In addition, the manufacturers also know that controlled transmissions in automatic systems enable higher fuel efficiency. Also, because automatics are so much more popular than manuals, they are much cheaper to produce. No accountant looks at 1.2 percent of all car sales and says, “Yes, we should focus on these buyers.”

As a result, research and development funds are simply not being spent on manual transmissions. This performance and efficiency deficit should not swing back in favor of the manual. It’s a death spiral for the manual transmission and a “get rich richer” situation for the automatic transmission. Nobody buys manual transmissions because automatic is so good. And manuals cannot get better because no one would wisely invest in improving them because the demand is so low.

Keep in mind that the well-known and well-traveled Tremec TR-6060 first debuted in 2007 and is still used today, largely unchanged. “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” it just won’t be enough when automatic transmissions become faster, more efficient and more popular every year.

Then there is this new security technology. Driver assistance functions such as automatic emergency braking and adaptive cruise control are quickly becoming the norm. For example, due to a voluntary agreement from 2019 between 20 automakers and the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, automatic emergency braking will be available for most models by 2022.

Is it impossible to adapt manual transmissions to this technology? No. But it’s very, very expensive. And giant corporations don’t like “expensive”. If we’re realistic, for a product that makes up only 1.2 percent of total sales, a far more sensible decision is to get rid of that product entirely instead of investing in improving it.

How quickly will the gearbox release the bucket? I assume that the very last clutch pedal will roll off the assembly line as early as 2025. If I bet on it, I would bet there will be no more new models announced after that date.

Again, that doesn’t make me happy. And I sincerely hope that I’m wrong. I love driving a stick. I don’t think there’s anything like shifting your gears – you’re never more connected to a car than when you physically connect the engine to the road. It feels like you are converting energy into speed right away.

In addition, a manual transmission has the magical ability to turn a boring car into a spectacular one. You really don’t need a lot of horsepower when you have a clutch pedal, as cars like the Subaru BRZ, Toyota 86, and Mazda MX-5 prove. A Honda Civic Type R without a manual gearbox doesn’t appeal to me at all. She needs this crucial point of engagement to come to life as much as she does.

Like it or not, commerce is a democracy and auto enthusiasts are a very, very small constituency. Even tiny. And within that tiny voting block is the even tinier, more microscopic block of manual transmission enthusiasts, and we are a group that is getting smaller by the day.