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Visitors to the upcoming Los Angeles Auto Show will see supercars, hoverboards, self-propelling luggage and all manner of new transportation options.
But they'll be hard pressed to find a clutch pedal or a stick shift. Available in nearly half of new models in the U.S. a decade ago, the manual transmission is going the way of the rumble seat, with stick availability falling to about a quarter this year.
Once standard equipment on all motor vehicles, preferred for its dependability, fuel efficiency and sporty characteristics, the four-on-the-floor is disappearing from major car manufacturers' lineups — and subsequently from the sprawling auto show's floors.
Consider, too, that electric vehicles don't even have a transmission.
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The Disappearing Stick Shift: Less Than 3% of Cars Sold in the U.S. Have Manual Transmissions
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You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @03:11AM
It's not that I can make better decisions than an automatic. But I feel it keeps me in the game when I'm driving.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @03:16AM
You must really hate self driving cars, LUDDITE.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @03:21AM
Vinyl records came back, didn't they? Maybe cars with stick shifts will too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @04:28AM
Only for hipsters.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday November 18 2016, @03:24AM
People using a stick actually drive, because fiddling with your phone, doughnut, mascara and coffee is a lot harder.
Honestly, my dinky subcompact (Versa) seriously benefits from being a manual: The automatic gearboxes in that price range make the engine feel pathetically anemic (4 longs gears). With a clutch, I can take the same car and engine and throw it around the traffic or canyon without even needing to exceed 3500RPM (probably under a 100 horses at that point).
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday November 18 2016, @03:29AM
Manual transmissions, in most cars, are fun - but not in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Driving in most cities, these days. is not something anyone does for fun - too much traffic.
In absence of opportunity to have fun while driving, automatics take over.
Finding out the peak power in my Suzuki Sierra was 6,300 RPM made that car sooo much more fun to drive (not so much for passengers - it was small, it moved around alot, and it sounded like it was going to explode..)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @06:07AM
"Most cities" doesn't even begin to cover it.
In the 1960s, a funny guy who was still popular had a bit about having a car with a clutch in a city with lots of HILLS.
Bill Cosby - Driving in San Fransisco [youtube.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @03:01PM
I wore out that album, plus a few others of his. Very funny stuff, but I don't think I'm allowed to say that these days.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday November 18 2016, @04:26AM
All my cars have been manual, and surprisingly, many of my friends still have manual transmissions as well. I find you have more road feel, pay more attention, and in the winter have far better control of the car in ice and snow. I'm Canadian, so your mileage may vary. With a manual transmission, snow tires, and front wheel drive, there's not much you can't handle. You feel everything. Sadly though, the next car may have an automatic or CVT. They are getting better, especially the paddle-shiftable automatics.
I'm still of the opinion that if everyone drove a standard, traffic would flow much more smoothly on highways as it would greatly reduce the domino effect of overly early braking. Guess we'll have to wait for AI driven cars to drive properly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @06:28AM
if everyone drove a standard, traffic would flow much more smoothly
Where I grew up, we got snowfall about 1 day every 6 years.
It was usually melted away in 3 days or less.
One time, we had an especially "heavy" snowfall.
A woman who lived a block away had managed to get her Cadillac over to our street but, when she tried to get back home, the slight incline in the road was beyond her abilities.
She was spinning the tires and -knew- that when it doesn't do what you want you add more power.
Daddy told her to slide over and he'd get her home.
He dropped the car into gear and just let the damned thing creep forward at idle.
She had a steep uphill driveway and I didn't get to see that part but, after he got it parked there, she thought my old man was just the world's most talented driver.
In short: Some people can't even drive an automatic.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday November 18 2016, @06:41AM
And, as so many in this discussion already realized, very few people nowadays enjoy driving. First of all, driving in a city is rarely fun - it is not just you and the road; it's you and another 100 cars around you, in less than a foot from your bumpers. You cannot do anything but go with the flow. Second, driving is considerably more dangerous than posting on facebook. It costs more up front, and consequences of an error can be deadly to you or to others. How many young people today want to hold such responsibility in their hands? As the numbers show, not too many.
The society is transforming from being physically mobile to being informationally mobile. 30 years ago if you wanted to work you had to drive to work. Today if you want to work you often can do that from home or from Starbucks. If your job requires presence, you take the transit and, while they carry your body to work and back, play with your phone. Works for many. Values change over time. Decades ago a car meant freedom to go wherever, whenever. Why do you need to go anywhere today? What will you see or do there that is different from where you live? Perhaps, people are lazy. I am lazy too, in a way, but I do make a few road trips per year. The rest of the year I am chained to my desk at work. If I could teleport from my home to my work space, I would. I would never go anywhere just to look at the place. I do not despise driving, and on some open roads it is nice, but so is reading at home or coding at work, as well as many other things. As I said, values change.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday November 18 2016, @03:23PM
People using a stick actually drive, because fiddling with your phone, doughnut, mascara and coffee is a lot harder.
Once I managed to eat an ice cream cone while driving a manual--without getting any on myself! But yeah, it was a challenge.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by number11 on Friday November 18 2016, @03:32AM
My automatic will let me manually shift through all the gears. Even if it does have a "pretend gate" for the shift lever, that turns the lever into one of those paddle things (push forward to shift up, pull back to shift down) and no clutch pedal. So it's a little like doing a video game instead of pushing a lever through the proper gates and moving machinery, and pressing with your left foot doesn't actually do anything. It's watching, though, and if it thinks I'm going to act stupid and break something, it will take control away from me. Our new robotic overlords have arrived, and we welcomed them, because the price was very reasonable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @05:37AM
Most of those, unless they are the 'elite model' of either that particular car, or your brand's model range have horribly sloppy pseudo-manual shifting. I actually got an opportunity to drive a C6 corvette a few years back and it was the most miserable experience ever, in sport mode! While slamming on the throttle would get it revving fast, the shifts between gears were terribly slow in either drive or manual mode, and compared to an actual manual had no place in that particular car. IS250 was the same way, although I read the IS-Fs had their shift times dramatically reduced compared to the rest of the range (I don't remember the exact numbers, but comparable to other more expensive sports cars, or a well build manual with an experienced driver.
That said, anything 6 gears or above in an automatic nowadays is probably going to be better as a commuter car for everybody except serious drivers. Not much enjoyment to be had, the shift times suck, but they get good fuel economy and keep the average schmuck from polluting by taking away their control of the throttle and gears.
I'll stick with a manual until they pry it from my cold dead corpse. Which might be sooner than later the way they are ruining both the US, and the World in general.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @04:47AM
I have a VW with auto transmission. I definitely can make better shift decisions then it. Even in my sleep.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @04:56AM
> But I feel it keeps me in the game when I'm driving.
That's what the steering wheel is for.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by shortscreen on Friday November 18 2016, @06:22AM
Automatics are annoying. Last I heard they can't be flat towed or push started either.
I'm not too worried about what new cars come with. I already retrofitted my 35-year-old car with a 6-speed manual and I have some spare 5-speed boxes in the basement.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday November 18 2016, @03:31PM
Last I heard they can't be flat towed or push started either.
I was quite surprised to hear about push starting. [wikipedia.org] See, *this* is the kind of sweet stuff I wish they taught in driver's ed.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday November 18 2016, @05:57PM
I don't know how well you can do push starting anymore, when nanny car companies have decided that Americans need to push the clutch on the floor or he car won't start.
I had to get good at push-starting when I learnt to drive, because my mom's car was regularly misbehaving. But that's becoming obsolete faster than the manual itself. Stupid need to protect people from themselves...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @06:24PM
When the kick starter pawl (ratchet part) failed in my small motorcycle, I bump started it for years. The sequence is to put in gear, hold clutch lever in, push the bike. After a few steps, hop on the seat (add weight to the rear wheel) and release the clutch to turn the engine over. If you don't land on the seat at the right time, the rear tire might just slide, and not turn the engine. As noted, as soon as the engine fires, pull clutch back in so it doesn't stall at low speed.
.
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My friend with a 1911 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost has the best starting method I've seen. Once the car has been running and is warmed up, he shuts off the 6 cylinder engine. One cylinder ends up with valves closed and the piston past top dead center. This cylinder is filled with air-fuel mixture--potential energy! Since there is a spark timing lever on the steering wheel, all he has to do is turn on the ignition (a vibrator-coil affair) and then flip the timing lever up and down to make a spark in that cylinder.
Of course he knows that he should never advance the timing before TDC -- which would risk starting the engine in reverse rotation (most engines don't like this).
The effect is like magic. Things are quiet and he moves the little timing lever (barely noticeable, unless you know what to watch for), and then the engine is idling. None of that crude starter-motor grinding noise. His car has been very carefully rebuilt and sometimes this "start on the timing lever" technique will work after several days of sitting. It always works when the engine is still warm.
I don't think that this technique is used to re-start "mild-hybrid" cars that stop the engine when the car stops, but it would save the life of the starter motor and battery. With a computer that knows the phase angle of the crankshaft, it should be really easy to command a spark in the correct cylinder (might also need to squirt some fuel if the engine is direct fuel injected).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @09:46PM
I really don't think that would work on a modern engine, because there won't be any fuel in the cylinder. (Unless it's got direct injection -- then, as you say, you could spray some fuel in.) Your friend's antique is carbureted, so it always breathes mixture, but a fuel injected engine sometimes breathes air, perhaps most noticeably during closed-throttle deceleration, and I'm pretty sure also during shutdown. I don't think you would be able to meet current emissions standards if you change it to keep the injectors running during shutdown.
Anyway, it's kinda pointless -- the whole idea of the "mild hybrid" (I mean the engineering idea, not the naming) is instead of using a starter motor that runs a tiny duty cycle at low engine RPM and ludicrous current, and thus is both at risk of excess wear and unable to augment the engine at normal driving speeds, the alternator (which is already designed to run continuously), beefed up and properly connected, will both serve well enough to start a warm engine, and then be usable to augment mechanical power (on launch and acceleration) as well as withdraw mechanical power (during cruise and braking) to charge the battery as normal. So although the old starter is typically retained for cold starts, you're not putting wear on it every time you stop at a traffic light -- and since you're going to load the alternator-starter anyway, as you accelerate away, it shouldn't affect its longevity much to also use it to turn the engine over first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @10:23PM
It's not about being able to make better decisions than the automatic -- it's about being able to make those decisions early, engage the right gear , and then accelerate or decelerate exactly when you want to. Whereas an automatic usually has no good mechanism to communicate "Getting ready to overtake, so kick it down a gear" before you're actually ready to stand on the accelerator pedal, so either you live with it perpetually one move behind, or you have to stomp the accelerator (to request a downshift) then back off (enough so you don't rear-end the guy you're planning to pass, but not enough to for the transmission to think you're going back to cruise), buying you a limited window in which to punch it. But if you can't pass right away, you'll need to let it drop back to overdrive, and try again -- unlike a manual, where if you don't mind the fuel consumption, you can happily tool along in 4th all day waiting for a gap to pass.