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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 RS3 on Saturday November 09 2019, @03:58PM (1 child)
As I mentioned above, I've always manually shifted automatics to some extent. Mostly to prevent unnecessary shifting- I know when I'm going to accelerate more, or when traffic is slowing ahead, and there's no reason for it to drop into 3, then back to 2 and 1. It's done with planning, thought, and control of wear-and-tear in mind.
Yes, I've seen and even driven some cars that have no manual control. Not a big fan- I'm the type to keep a car for a very long time and trans repairs can be outrageously costly. Partly because shops always want to do a full rebuild or replace it, rather than fix 1 bad valve, servo, actuator, etc. Clutches and bands rarely wear out- it's usually some electrical or solenoid valve that goes bad. I recently saw a service bulletin (that should be a recall) because the solenoid (electro-magnet) valve clogs up with metal particles because- the solenoid is a MAGNET and the particles build up and logjam. The factory fix: replace the solenoid valve, fluid, filter, and place a magnet in the bottom of the pan to trap the particles. Most trans have magnets now, but some are too small to catch enough of the particles.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday November 09 2019, @04:01PM
I meant to add: careful thoughtful manual shifting can prevent much unnecessary shifting, the resulting wear and tear, and metal particles that just accelerate the wear and clog solenoid valves. And no, filters don't trap all of the particles unfortunately. The "stuff" you'll find on a pan magnet is as fine as talcum powder.