Let’s face it. The Manual Transmission is dying. To many purists, this is a sad time. To others who have struggled in driving a manual transmission vehicle in the past, the sooner the better. The car culture is shifting towards automatic technology – from driverless cars that have the potential to save energy, to electric cars that can spare you from spending cash for gas. That goes the same with the transmission. According to Edmunds.com, only 1.2% of vehicles in 2019 were sold with manual transmission. In this article, we discuss the reasons why the manual transmission is dying and why it won’t die completely for a long time to come.
Reasons Why Manual Transmission Is Dying
Safety and Health
Modern cars have all the features that make driving a lot safer. Active assistance and monitoring features, to name a few, make modern cars with automatic transmission a safer vehicle to drive. Most carmakers are already heading towards making their vehicles with safety features, and they continue making these features better.
Moreover, driving a car with manual transmission can cause stress for drivers. The US National Library of Medicine, together with the National Institutes of Health, did a research on this. The result? The research found out that drivers became more stressed when driving with a manual transmission. Also, they found out that drivers driving with manual transmissions had more errors than drivers using automatic ones.
Ease Of Use
The world has caught on; driving manual cars is not as comfortable. Most vehicles with automatic transmissions can provide more comfort than ones with manual transmission. For starters, no clutch means no stress (see above). Second, automatic driving is much safer and more comfortable when in heavy congestion (again, see above). Third, everything is just much easier to use, from gear changes to checking out the gauges. The third one is affirmative only when you set up the things the correct way. And we don’t have to mention the infotainment systems of modern cars.
Cost
Owning a manual transmission has become costly. As more and more vehicle manufacturers are ditching manual transmissions altogether to make way for new automatic lineups, supply for manual transmission vehicles has plummeted. It’s also important to note that the depreciation rate for manual cars are higher compared to automatic cars.
What Can Keep The Transmission Alive?
Even though there are a few good factors that could kill manual transmissions, there’s this one factor that serves as a manual’s tiny light at the end of the tunnel. And that is the diehard manual transmission fanatics. This factor is akin to scuba tanks. Even though there are digital tanks available, there are divers who still wish to stick to their manual gear. That goes the same with drivers who are utterly loyal to their clutches. Although that number is few, we believe that there will always be a market for the manual transmission vehicle.
Only time will tell if the manual transmission dies completely, but for now, let’s enjoy the benefits of modern cars. If you want to read more awesome car posts, click on the link to check our blog.
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