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EVs are now outselling manual transmissions in the US
The manual transmission continues to have a pretty tough time here in America, with buyers avoiding manual-transmission cars in record numbers. Such record numbers that now EV sales have surpassed sales of vehicles with manual transmissions, according to data from J.D. Power and reported recently by Driving.ca.
Why is that important? Well, the venerable stick shift has been around since someone decided that cars needed more than one gear. While its previous popularity has been eclipsed by the automatic transmission for decades, the manual transmission has managed to hang on.
According to J.D. Power, manual transmissions have approximately 1.1% market penetration in America, which for many enthusiasts is a fairly grim figure to see. Comparatively, electric vehicles -- which have really only been commercially available to the public for the last decade or so -- now represent 1.9% of car sales in the US.
A big chunk of the reason for this likely lies in good old-fashioned availability. The manual transmission used to be the cheap transmission of choice. It was what you got when you were buying a small, affordable car and didn't want to shell out several thousand dollars for an automatic.
Now, most of those same small, affordable cars are only sold as automatics. The manual transmission was also traditionally the way you'd go if you wanted to buy a high-performance car because old automatics were often slow to shift and shifted at the wrong time. That's also changed, with many of the most high-performing models from companies offered with either paddle-shifted dual-clutch transmissions or performance-tuned automatics.
It was only a matter of time as fewer and fewer cars with manual transmissions are being manufactured at the same time as more and more electric vehicles are being built. Who here saw this coming so soon?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 09 2019, @03:31PM (1 child)
I still climb into automatic vehicles, and stomp a dent in the floorboard where the clutch should have been. I've finally stopped doing it in the Trailblazer, but first time in any truck or truck-like vehicle, I'm on the clutch to start it up. Except, no clutch. Kids just look at me weird when they catch me doing it. "What are you DOING, old man?" The only reasonable response would be, "We grew up kick starting our dinosaurs, before there was dino juice for all these silly cars."
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Sunday November 10 2019, @12:30AM
I do that as well, I just expect a larger vehicle to be manual. Although I still do it in unfamiliar cars as well.
"We grew up kick starting our dinosaurs, before there was dino juice for all these silly cars." Best response ever!
How to fuck with a millennial or later:
Put them in a "Three on the tree" manual transmission car.
Give them instructions on how to operate it.
Make those instructions in CURSIVE!
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