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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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Nadia Comaneci, simple perfection.
-- '76 Olympics
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 18 2016, @05:47AM
"I guess they like to listen to the engine sound"
Yep. I'm a dinosaur who learned to drive in a six cylinder chevy pickup, three on the tree. The pickup wasn't noisy, but I could hear it. You could hear when it was time to shift. Big trucks, ditto, whether they were 5-speed or 18-speed. Listen to the engine, and you know when to up-shift or down-shift. I like the sound of the engine, it tells you everything you really need to know about how the truck is running. If the engine is sick, you can hear it, and either fix it, or find someone who can fix it. I don't like excessively noisy engines or motors, but I don't like them to quiet, either. (Excessive noise is the sign of a bad exhaust system, which is bad for the engine and/or the driver in a number of ways.)