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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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Cum tacent, clamant. When they are silent, they shout. -Cicero
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @04:16AM
You said with an automatic, you have to wait 5 or 10 seconds before the car starts to move with power.
This is total bullshit. I say this as someone who drove nothing but stick Hondas for 20 years or so and now drive an automatic. The automatic is a Toyota Sienna 3.5L V6. That Toyota delivers buttery smooth continuous power. You almost can't tell it's shifting. The Honda Odyssey automatic with the same size engine, on the other hand, has to be floored to get any acceleration at all out of it and it always wants to go to a higher, less powerful gear. You would never guess it had a real engine in it by the crummy transmission performance. The Honda gets better gas mileage, though. The lesson is that you can design an auto trans for power or economy, and you should know before you buy which your car has been designed for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @05:12AM
Dunno. I inherited a 2010 Lexus ES350. I don't know if it's the same transmission as in the Sienna, but it's the same engine, at least. Transmission was just as crap as every other automatic transmission. Sure, it was smooth. And if you pushed the pedal halfway down, it would try every gear in the box two or three times before it picked one. The play-pretend "manual" shift feature was worthless too, since it pretty much did whatever it pleased whether you used it or not.