A manual transmission does have one upside. It creates engagement around the experience of driving, which I believe is something many vehicles lack. I sound like [old man yells at cloud], but people just do not seem to be paying attention to what they're doing in their giant metal death machines these days.
There are the fun aspects obviously. I know that when I want to pass another car, go around a corner at speed, and navigate snowy roads I'll be in exactly the right gear without the computer having to guess what I want. But those are secondary to the demand of attention created by it.
I think Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in one of his books, that in general, drivers of manual transmission cars get in fewer accidents because they simply can't do some of the things that those driving automatic transmission cars take for granted.
e.g. eating and drinking, putting on makeup, etc.
wrt "the feel of the road", I think much of that is already lost with drive-by-wire technology. I haven't really had that feeling since I sat in a friend's old 90's civic and stepped on the throttle. You can get a little closer with Mazda tiptronic, but it's basically like "playing cars" instead of driving a car.
i've been driving manual for the last seven years pretty much exclusively and i used to think that, but ive certainly found myself in all sorts of unsafe driving predicaments where i end up revving out the car, shifting with my left hand, shifting with food in my hand, etc.
In the last few years ive made a point to reduce distractions while driving and no longer do this stuff, but the point being, once you get used to manual - you find a way to be dangerous driving it haha
Not a general occurence but this reminds me of a taxi driver I had in Wuhan. While driving 50 mph on the shoulder of the highway due to traffic, he was steering with one hand, shifting with his other hand and continuing to smoke a cigarette. Then his phone rang and he held it up to his ear to take the call. I didn't know whether to be afraid or impressed...
> they simply can't do some of the things that those driving automatic transmission cars take for granted.
They sure can, though it may be more inconvenient. In addition to the examples given by a sibling comment, I’ve seen a guy on a car with manual transmission steering with his knee while using both hands to eat ice cream from a cup.
This makes sense and hadn’t really thought about it that way. My mom had her right (shifting side) arm amputated when I was younger and there were a few times we were driving and I’d do the shifting for her.
Don’t remember why I didn’t drive in the first place (and for the record her personal vehicle was automatic, though she was a firm advocate of manuals).
I think it’s funny looking back on it but can’t say it’s particularly safe
If he wrote that, Gladwell seriously underestimates the adaptability of humans. We manage to do unsafe stuff just fine as the shifting becomes second nature.
And how are you supposed to replicate the thrill of an inclined start when at a red light and the guy behind you inches closer to your bumper! Or the excitement of transforming stop-and-go traffic from mindless time waster to mentally taxing gear shifting exam!
I kid somewhat. I drove stick for years and it was a neat experience that is definitely more engaging, and I'm glad I have the skill now, but I really despised it sometimes.
(EDIT: or the game of "how good are you _actually_ at shifting" when trying to turn onto a busy road between two passing cars!)
Hill start assist is a thing in "modern" manual transmissions. It automatically holds the brake for you as you engage the clutch so you don't roll back. After burning the clutch in my previous car when I was stuck climbing a packed parking ramp, it felt like magic the first time it kicked in.
Stop and go traffic can still be brutal. At least one of your legs gets a free workout.
I've been driving manual for the last 12 years. I enjoy and prefer it simply because it's more fun (to me).
That said, I don't think we should be making a virtue out of necessity. There's nothing objectively better about this set of mechanical constraints compared to another set of mechanical constraints.
I remember EV sceptics using similar arguments half a decade ago. No gears, no engine noise, no rumble - what is there to get excited about? Well, guess what, EVs are some of the most exciting cars to drive these days, and having no gears to shift definitely doesn't take away from engagement.
It's just a different experience - not necessarily better or worse.
Update: the safety/attention argument might only apply if you have to think about shifting gears, like in a first year or two. I live in Europe where many cars still have manual transmissions. Trust me, there are plenty of terrible and distracted drivers over here too :)
One major safety benefit of a manual is that some conscious or at least coordinated action is needed to get the car going.
Compare to an automatic or especially electric car, which will creep forward by itself and can accelerate strongly with an absent-minded prod of the accelerator.
These have much greater risk of unintended acceleration from a stop, which is the cause of a lot of accidents (mixing up the pedals, basically). Ironically in this way the manual car is more 'idiot-proof'.
And a manual is a higher barrier to a incompetent driver. A little kid isn't likely to get the manual to do anything--probably can't even start it. (Many have a safety that won't engage the starter without the clutch being pushed.)
I don't think it's an adequate reason to keep them, though. I exclusively owned manuals until 2013, at that point I found my objections with automatics no longer applied and no suitable manual existed--all were either bare-bones or sporty.
I live in the greater New York area and I walk a lot, or use my kick scooter (Xootr), so this is my perspective.
Comfy seats, phone, music, beverage holder—all the comforts of the living room—drivers are oblivious to everyone and everything around them. How many times is a driver ‘surprised’ when they realize you’re sharing the road with them. How entitled are drivers who flip out when anyone slows their forward progress. People wrapped in their personal auto-cocoon, and completely distracted and emotionally disconnected from people outside. Leave their air conditioned homes, and button up in their air conditioned cars. From isolation to insulated.
My family always had manual cars, and when someone dropped out, they would say, I’m too old, and too tired to drive the clutch. Automatic was for old people. Haha
Speaking of snowy roads, it's also easier (in my experience) to get a car with a manual transmission unstuck in the snow because you can quickly alternate between first gear and reverse and rock the car.
Obviously wouldn't be an issue for people who live in warmer climates, though.
It is also sometimes possible to get going on a slick or icy surface by directly using a lower (numerically higher on the shift knob) gear rather than having the wheel(s) spinning in first gear, the tallest of the forward gears. A car with a manual transmission can possibly be made to crawl out of the predicament by using third or fourth gear as the driver lets out the clutch with extra throttle to overcome stalling. This goes for 4x4s too, which seems lost on some of the folks I know today who don't have the background experience that earlier generations of drivers have had.
Some vehicles not supposed for being used on roads like ЗиЛ-131 have first and reverse gears settled on a line against each other for making rock the car as easy as possible.
When I first left college I was living with my grandfather and commuting 30 miles to my job. I had to leave early in the morning, and had to borrow his automatic car to make the trip until I could save the money for one of my own. I almost fell asleep on a few occasions, which convinced me that getting a manual for the trip would be safer.
When I could finally afford my own car, I purchased, as planned, a car with a manual transmission. It was engaging enough on the drive that falling asleep wasn't a risk.
It has many, many upsides. With the only true downside being the skill needed to operate.
Manual transmissions aren't going anywhere. Yes, the latest greatest $35,000 car that average Americans are buying will always be an automatic. But for trucks and cheaper cars they will always be the best choice.
I generally prefer manual for on-road driving but auto is a far better choice for 4wd technical trails and rock crawling. Trust me when I say you don't want to stall when navigating a tricky obstacle while hanging off the edge of a cliff.
I'm somewhat sure that unsychronized 12+ gear truck manuals and float shifting are somewhat of an Americanism, because Eurotrucks seem to basically all use automated manuals (AMTs).
As far as I can tell, the manual is no longer the cheap option in the US. I assume that's because it uses exotic equipment put into thousands of cars rather than the standard stuff put into millions of cars:
My experience in 2013 was manuals were bottom of the heap, bare bones cars and sport cars, nothing else in the sort of stuff I was looking at. I suspect the latter is what's driving up the cost.
The last time I bought a car was in 2012, and I had to wait for a manual to arrive on the lot. I haven't looked, so I don't know whether they're more readily available nowadays. I hear there's been a lot of change in dealer inventory in the last decade.
A manual transmission means your gear shift points are beholden to you and not to some corporate bean counter who's going to lean on the engineer to re-tune the shift points so he can get a bonus for squeezing out an extra .01mpg.
It's about corporate interests (cram a small engine in a big car and don't ever let the thing rev if you can help it) being directly contradictory to what makes for pleasant merging or hell climbing experience (let the thing rev and don't up-shift until it's time). This is a large part of why manuals stuck around so long in Europe.
I always hated automatics because I had only driven cheap rental cars with automatics. My family got a Mazda 3 with automatic a few years back, and it's so much better. I still prefer a stick in some situations, but it's not constant misery the way an Aveo or a Versa or a Yaris were.
That's not been my experience. Automatics will upshift given half an opportunity but mine behaves reasonably when you step on the gas. It can even very smoothly downshift if needed to deliver the power.
I will give up my manual transmission, if you will bring back pull-knobs, twist knobs and other tactile switches for the main controls of my vehicle, with the appropriate tactile feedback at set points so I can set them without looking.
More seriously - I recently cross-shopped the major low/mid-tier brands (Toyota, Subaru, etc.) and the quality of these touch screens vs physical controls is shockingly bad for the sticker price. I, perhaps naively, expected the responsiveness to be at least as good as a recent iPhone... it was not.
In addition, bring back smallish cars and 4x4s that can truly, safely freewheel for towing. A two-wheel drive car with a manual transmission is fine for this, but the options today are few and dwindling. A 4x4 with a transfer case with a neutral gear is fine for this task, but a new Jeep Wrangler is hardly small anymore in the way CJ5s and Suzuki Samurais were.
Audi A1, Audi A3 since ~2020 (no idea about the other ones) is for you then I guess :)
They have a very fast and responsive touchscreen, but all the critical controls (AC, volume, seat heating, you name it) are physical. I rarely if ever touch the screen even on very long trips.
When I started driving I couldn't understand why you would want an automatic transmission. It's so simple, muscle memory. You feel the car. But then, after spending a couple of years with a car with a somewhat good automatic transmission that idea sort of faded away. It was both smoother and more reactive than I could ever dream of becoming.
Recently I switched to an EV, and now I don't understand why people would want a combustion car, let alone a manual transmission anymore. All that power, available instantaneously. You feel the car, sort of like your old manual transmission. I wonder if autonomous driving will have the same trajectory.
>Try driving 3 hours in a wooded forest without roads or lane markers and see how you feel.
>With my horse, I can trot around through trees and streams, and even let it graze on grass
That's sincerely how irrelevant your example is to people like myself who don't drive 3 hours outside of cell reception or electricity, or ride horses through forests
No it's not! ...because it's about not asserting your circumstances on others, and especially including regulation and policy in that which is where this attitude regularly ends up.
I've actually got no doubt there are important jobs for which there is still no replacement for a horse.
That's the whole point. OP couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't want an EV. I simply could not do the work that I do to help fix our streams and river to keep sediment & nutrients low and help rebuild the fish populations if I was forced to use an EV.
This is a huge, common issue especially amongst that silicon valley / bay area culture. They do not consider anyone's needs outside their immediate experience. This is a big part of the push back from rural communities against urban politics.
> I don't understand why people would want a combustion car, let alone a manual transmission anymore.
Then I said
> That's sincerely how irrelevant your example is to people like myself who don't drive 3 hours outside of cell reception or electricity, or ride horses through forests reply
Neither of us said anything about imposing anything on others, we strictly talked about our own circumstances, for which there is neither a need for horses nor a need for combustion vehicles. I am also against california "progressivism" but frankly you seem to have reacted reflexively to something neither of us was doing, just because we don't need combustion vehicles
For most people that is a non-issue. Modern EVs (especially Tesla) are exceptionally good at estimating remaining range. I know EV adoption in Norway might be a bit of an exception as of now, but as things are right now, in Norway, it's not something you think or worry about.
My point is that some people need to do that regularly, such as myself, as an environmental/water quality engineer in a rural area.
OP indicated they couldn't see why anybody wouldn't want an EV.
In reality, there simply IS no feasible recharging plan in that scenario.
The reason I made the point is this: I have regular need for my 4WD truck, and I carry a lot of self-rescue equipment: a 2-stroke gas chainsaw, winch, extra fuel, a satellite text communication device (this is less helpful than you'd think in a deep forest), food, water, clothes, shelter, hygiene products, a trauma kit and a firearm.
On this website loaded with urbanites, many people regularly attack those things as being "totally unnecessary" and would have no problem banning them without any consideration for edge cases.
Obviously I don't wholeheartedly mean that. Everyone, even owners of EVs and urbanites, understands that people have a different set of requirements and needs. If you see everything as an attack, then perhaps you're just the one looking at it the wrong way.
Because anyone who brings this topic up is regularly attacked. I've had it happen too when I mention driving to locations not on a supercharger route. "Why would you ever want to do that?" is the response de'jour.
It's easy to be defensive when the normal response is an attack.
As someone that has been trying to get a trackpad on a laptop work as well in Linux as those on MacBooks, I can resonate with that feeling.
Language is hard, and becomes very tame if you have to always add asterix everywhere. But fair point. It might not have been clear from my original post, but I was hinting that my current "cannot understand" would likely be challenged in the future, by autonomous vehicles. Rinse and repeat.
Because it’s how people have driven cars for 70 years. Why would anyone drive a car _with_ a plan for refueling? Gas stations are generally everywhere, and you just to pay attention to how far the closest one is in the most remote and deserted of regions (of the US).
After learning on a manual, and living with automatics for a good couple of decades, I intentionally got a manual again (a subaru).
It's not super smooth.
It's not the height of efficiency (yet still 5mpg better than the best of my automatics).
But that's on me, not the car. It's a skill I can develop, and it's a skill I'm proud of developing. If I want to drive smoothly, I can. If I want to drive like a bat out of hell, I can do that too.
And no, I can't really do the latter in my automatic CVT, at least not comfortably. Stepping on the gas to overtake causes it to downshift erratically (yes, a modern CVT emulates a manual transmission and downshifts), bringing me close to a redline before it shifts (again, WTF CVT?) back up to avoid the redline.
Depends on your location, I guess. I have not had any issues, and seeing as I don't use my car for commuting, but still have managed to do 25k kilometers this year I would say my data supports that idea.
Europe has never had much love for automatic gearshifts, and pretty much everyone learns to drive with a manual transmission. With hybrid cars, however, manual transmission is simply not an option.
Unfortunately, not all automatics are equally comfortable, and a quick test drive is often not enough to find out.
yeah the article has a very US-centric take, stick shift is still very much alive in Europe. it's a lot of the times the more affordable option, and plenty of places in Europe dont have bumper to bumper traffic that makes stick a pain
The point is the same here though - electric cars don't have them, so it'll die out just as quickly (the fall off being even more precipitous). It'll be more missed here than in the states, where it sounds like it is already nearly gone.
Hmm, the EU also has stricter emission requirements from ICE cars, so above some displacement (roughly 1500cc or so I think), manuals are becoming rare, as better emissions means turbos, which means higher revs, which means more gears (7-8) at which point a manual becomes a pain in the ass.
Manuals are not long for this world (unfortunately): the low end (smaller engines, city cars) are likely to go EV or auto for comfort in traffic and the high end is likely to go auto for performance/emissions.
I have driven manual since I could. In italy it is still the norm to have a manual. Automatic transmission are becoming more and more popular with hybrid/EVs.
I also feel, for some reason, that there is also a stigma around automatic transmissions being less reliable (when I actually think it's the opposite).
I would change my manual for an automatic in a nano second if I could.
With the centrally heated house rising, so we forgot the skill (and pleasure) to heat your house with a fire (coal, wood). We buy fully-prepared meals in the supermarket - no longer willing to go to three or four separate shops to buy the ingredients and spend time at home putting them together. Even bread-making at home has been replaced by a machine that does it for you.
Technology takes over, and there are always people that think this is a bad thing. But it's of all times and started before our ancestors decided to walk upright...
The skill and pleasure of heating your house with coal? The house my mother grew up in had a coal furnace in it through sometime in the 1960s, and on cold mornings somebody had to be the first out of bed to get the furnace going. I don't know who that person was--probably an uncle--but I doubt he missed the chance to exercise the skill.
I was more of a fan of manuals for reasons of efficiency before double-clutch automaticss were widely available, and when CVTs were not very reliable. Of course none of that matters much for many electric vehicles either. My first and only MT car is a 2000 Honda Insight, though I'd like a 2016 MT Honda CR-Z to go with it eventually, to complete my collection of quirky MT Honda hybrids. Manual transmissions were historically much lighter weight and more efficient than torque-converter or CVT automatic transmissions, and usually more robust.
I don't have my MT Insight because I'm a gear-shifting control freak, but rather because it was the most efficient non-full-electric vehicle on the road until the Prius Prime. Being in graduate school still, I also don't have funds for anything fancy like a modern-ish Prius :)
In terms of technological advances, the automatic transmission is a tenuous improvement over the manual transmission. It costs more to manufacture and service and it performs less well (transfers engine torque less efficiently to wheels and cannot anticipate the need to upshift or downshift) in exchange for requiring less skill from drivers. The newer sequential manual transmissions (SMGs) blend the benefits of both with the mechanics of a manual transmission but shifts performed electronically. They're great except that they cost even more. I, for one, am happy with my old, reliable manual transmission.
My understanding is that while it used to be true that manual transmissions were more efficient due to humans keeping the engine in the torque sweet spot, it's no longer true since automatics can have so many more gears than manuals. And that's not even considering something like a CVT, which I understand can be even more efficient.
You're right about more gears in auto transmissions helping to keep the engine at its ideal RPM for torque. There are still more mechanical losses in an auto transmissions since the auto transmission's fluid-based torque converter does not transfer engine rotation as efficiently as a manual transmission's friction-based clutch when the latter is fully engaged.
Can confirm what the other commenter was saying, lockup torque converters exist. Most of the complaints you have are about 90s era auto tech which suuuck hard.
Example, 08 bmw I had with a ZF 6 speed auto. Pain to drive taking off cold in the morning as the software would allow it to slip. Functioned as an old school auto. Normally however, kick it from the line, it would hook up. This was a car with 500+ lbft of torque.
A little software mod and it was probably better to drive (with the paddles) than a manual in terms of engagement. Also let you keep both feet on the control peddals to modulate around the track.
Could also drive this thing for 6-7 hours, arrive and not feel tired.
> cannot anticipate the need to upshift or downshift
I feel like this is a red herring. How often does the computer fail to correctly upshift or downshift in such a way that it affects, say... mileage?
I find that when I drive my vehicle (an automatic transmission Mazda CX5), if I am using the "fake manual" (tiptronic), I tend to drive at a slightly higher rpm. I will sit at 2¼k rpms instead of the computer's preferable 1¾k rpms. I can assume from that that I am indeed burning more fuel (if only marginally)
I drove a stick shift for a little while, and I must confess, I absolutely hated it. Automatic is just easier, safer, and you can let the computer do everything. I beg your pardon, but I’m glad stick shift is ending.
I'm in total agreement here. I learnt to drive in a manual and thus my licence says I legally can do so (in the UK you can also get an 'automatic transmission' only licence that exempts you from legally driving manual/stick-shift cars).
However, the moment I could jump to an auto, I did. It's just SO much easier. I've been driving purely autos for over 20 years now. A lot of us see cars as a way to get us faster from A to B; there's no love affair here, it's just a tool. Any tool that makes it easier for the operator to use, is an improvement in my view.
Sure, keep the manual gearbox for the track. That's where 'fun' and 'hobby' driving should be. Out on the road, it's fuel economy (be it EV or Fossil) these days that really counts, and autos are much more economic.
I had exactly the opposite experience! I drove an automatic Mazda3 for ten years, it was the car I bought straight out of college, and I never viewed it as anything other than a tool which got me from point A to point B. A couple years ago, I traded in the 3 and got a 2020 Miata with a stick shift, for the simple reason that my wife has two cars of her own (a 2020 BRZ and a 2008 Lotus Elise) and they're both manual transmission, and it felt stupid to have cars in the family that only one person could drive. Any time we took the Elise out somewhere, she had to be the dedicated driver, which did in fact mean that at one point she had to drive herself to urgent care while I sat in the passenger seat and felt like an absolutely useless asshole.
I figured there were two options - either she could get rid of her manual transmission cars and replace them with automatics that I could drive (which wasn't a great solution because she really likes her manual transmissions and it seems dumb to ask her to get rid of something she loves) or I could learn how to drive a stick shift, and I knew the only way that I was _really_ going to learn how to drive a stick was if I was doing it every day, with no other options. Otherwise, I'd learn the theory of driving stick (clutch in, shift, clutch out slowly while you give it gas) but never actually be able to put it into practice at a time that it mattered.
Hence, the miata. My wife had to drive it home from the dealership when we got it, because I couldn't drive it myself, and I spent about a week trapped at home because I couldn't reliably get my car to start moving at traffic lights, but once I figured out how to reliably get from point A to point B again I realized that actually, it was kinda fun to get from point A to point B, and that there was no reason I couldn't just make a trip where point A and point B were the same place, driving just for the hell of it. Now I autocross once a month, go on drives with the local miata club, and put new car parts on my car to change what it does or how it sounds or how it feels, things that I never would have imagined I'd do back when I was driving an automatic just because I felt so much less connected to the use of the car.
I'm not totally convinced the automatics are more economical. There are 3 cars currently at our house. 2016 1.2 petrol manual, 2013 2.0 diesel manual, and 2021 1.0 petrol automatic. The 2013 car would consistently get 5 ish mpg better than the 2016 car, and that one would consistently get 5-10mpg better than the automatic
Added to that, I also think it's because a car just holds less headspace than it used to. Stick shifting fits in car culture, when a car is more than just a tool. People have emotional attachment to a manual transmission, not rational.
Cars are basically appliances now. Who, apart from a narrow slice of demographics, really cares about their car? It's kind of like a washing machine in that way.
I did like the article, it accurately describes what we're losing. Driving is just much less an analog experience now than it used to be.
I have driven nothing but standard shift vehicles (now referred to as manual) until my present 2010 CRV that I got in 2019 (nearly two decades of driving) because my wife complained about always having to drive if the family wanted to go somewhere together. I test drove a manual Jeep Wrangler yesterday and was grinning ear to ear. There is nothing that helps to create the link between driver and car in quite the same way. There is a romance to it. It is completely unnecessary these days, but it is also a simpler part that requires less maintenance, and comes with a slightly lower price in Jeeps. Personally, I do not see the standard shift dying as long as Mazda makes the MX5 and Chrysler makes Jeeps. The drivers of these vehicles demand them. Personally, I die and laugh at the same time every time I see a sports vehicle of any kind in automatic… You spent how much to be a passenger in your own vehicle exactly? (I know it’s inaccurate but this is a completely subjective thing)
For me, an automatic is just a great way to make me not care at all about a vehicle. I enjoy driving. I love driving. I love vehicles. I love the engagement and the control provided by a standard shift. I love driving through the mountains, windows down, beautiful scenery. Each turn brings the joy and thrill of discovery. I am linked to my vehicle and we operate as a single unified being.
EDIT: I also regularly sit in bumper to bumper traffic for an hour or so and manuals still never bothered me.
> I drive a stick shift. It’s a pain, sometimes. Clutching and shifting in bumper-to-bumper traffic wears you out.
My experience had been opposite. I had a manual car for about 6 years: 2005-2011.
It was fantastic in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The second gear had a lot of speed range so I could just stay in second gear most of the time, and use the throttle. Note: just the throttle, rarely the brake. Second will scale up to bursts of 40+ km/h, as well as down to very slow crawling.
When the movement slowed too much for the engine revs, then I instinctively stomped on the clutch, without shifting out of second gear; then if the movement picked up again, I just used the clutch to get going in second gear without going through first. As long as the car is rolling, you can start in second.
It was the only time I found any enjoyment in bumper-to-bumper traffic, like "damn, this is another thing you can handle nicely in a manual, making your life easier".
Another thing was being able to observe speed limits without having to look at the speedometer. You know from the sound/feel of the engine and the gear you are in how fast you're going.
When you get your drivers license in Sweden you have to take the driving test (so basically you need to learn to drive) with a manual gearbox. You can get a license using an automatic but then your license isn’t valid for vehicles with manual gearbox. The “real” license requires using a manual.
Given how few new cars are sold with manual gearboxes these days, not to mention EVs, I suspect this law is about to change soon.
After writing off my manual Subaru in a trailer jack knife, I took an automatic Subie that would downshift to second at 80 km/h and scream the engine to something like 6000 rpm when passing.
Pulling a glider up a hill, it couldn't make up its mind which gear it should be in, and shift back and forth every 15 seconds or so.
I test drove a CVT. To get a lighter engine to obtain better mileage to satisfy the EPA, you have a higher revving engine with really low viscosity oil and wider clearances - all of which will shorten engine life. Then there's the question of how long CVTs and high tech automatics will last.
Manufacture of a new car requires an enormous amount of energy to extract, smelt, cast and forge the metal parts.
Reducing fuel consumption does not save energy if the replacement cycle is shortened.
My current manual Subaru is 16 years old with over 400,000 km.
Stuff does have to be replaced; so far $1300 this year.
I remember a Renault 5 where just about everything but the transmission had to be replaced after 120,000.
I drove a brown 1989 Volkswagen Jetta with a manual transmission around western Colorado, it was really an experience. The car was older by then (late 90's) and it required a certain amount of skill to get it really moving such that it would crest the next steep, mountainous hill without having to be shifted down (eventually) into second gear. When the article talks about the vehicle becoming something like a prosthetic, that certainly rings true to me. Sometimes I have dreams where I am driving that car.
This reminds me of the interest in mechanical keyboards. The varied input from the clutch and transmission in a vehicle is much greater than the feedback from a keyboard, but I wonder if we're seeing the same principal at work.
Smiles per dollar is highest with a manual transmission "slow" car. A manual Mazda Miata is just so engaging and fun (and light!) in a way you can't electronically replicate. IMO, even the vaunted Porsche 911 manual box doesn't feel as nice (I think because cable vs direct mechanical linkage?).
I'm old enough that my first car (a Peugeot that had literally been on the way to a junkyard) had a manual choke in addition to the transmission, though even then that was unusual.
My dad insisted that both my sister and I learn stick, and I have to say, I do kinda miss it. All auto-everything barely feels like driving.
You definitely feel more closely connected to the car than you do on an automatic. For me, at least, it was more of a youth thing - I don’t enjoy driving nearly as much as I did in my 20’s.
I am not terribly old, but my dad insisted I drive stick (he grew up with a manual crank-start car in India), and all of my cars were manual until I went EV. I think I was far more attentive driving a manual, and that’s carried over but slowly fading. Just the awareness you need of your driving situation —- eg do I need to pass and does that require me to downshift? —- made me far more vigilant than I otherwise would have been.
My first 14 years of driving was always with a manual car, after that I've driven an auto most of the time and 99% of the time I do miss the manual. After a while, it became, almost, automatic and wasn't much of a hassle in traffic or anything.
I went from a manual to an electric car. I miss the five speed, but the EV is so much more convenient and better in every other way that it doesn't bother me as much as I though.
When I purchased my most recent car I was faced with the dilemma of knowing that modern automatic transmissions are superior to manual transmission in almost every way because they are no longer less efficient, no longer slower, and are more convenient if the model you're after has a good adaptive cruise control system.
But I still chose the 6-speed even though the automatic was available with slightly more power. If I'm the last person on earth doing the little "am I in neutral?" wiggle that's fine by me.
My first car was a manual transmission and I loved it. I have not had one since, but I sure would like one again. You really do get a feel of the car. You can shift when you want to, which sometimes makes a difference. I had that car when I moved to San Francisco. San Francisco. With it's steep hills.
I remember once, the first time, I drove up a steep hill and there was a stop sign at the top, but the stop sign was not where the car was level, so I was stopped with my car pointing up at a very steep angle. And what do you think happened next? Another car came up behind me, and was right up on my ass, no room at all.
So when it came time to let out the clutch and go forward, I was TERRIFIED that I would miss the timing and go backwards into the car behind me. Luckily it turned out ok and I didn't mess up, but I was sweating it. It was somewhere in Pacific Heights, maybe Pierce and Jackson intersection. I don't remember, but it was very steep for a manual transmission. Actually, I just looked at them in a Google street view, those hills don't look seem very steep at all...now, after I lived there a long time. But this was when I first moved there, and they were pretty damn steep in comparison from where I moved there from.
For me, at least, “easily” is not the right word … it doesn’t really capture what the feeling is like.
Much more apt is Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow. (“While flowingly shifting and steering” sounds horrible, but it captures it.) Fertile ground for flow is when the highly challenging is met with the highly skillful. It then sort of commences and sustains itself on its own, without demanding any conscious intervention - although you may choose to observe yourself in a flow state, which may cause broad grinning.
I remember driving a stick in San Francisco during rush hour. Bumper to bumper traffic. The hills sloped a lot more than I had anticipated, upping the challenge, since a lapse on my part could have meant stalling out, or even worse, rolling back into the car behind me. I had to make a lot of use of the parking brake trick, i.e. engage when stopped, not releasing until the clutch hit the sweet spot - like, every few seconds. Probably in excess of 100 instances total, maybe more! I have no idea, I wasn’t counting, because the old ‘99 Honda Civic Si and I had become a single organism, fused together as one, all parts acting in concert, with full awareness and a singular focus. I was even carrying on a conversation with a person who was totally unaware! (Never caught the appeal of a stick shift.) If she had expressed that something was different about me in that moment, it wouldn’t have been that I seemed preoccupied or distracted - not at all, because I was feeling sharper, more animated, more present, and not daydreaming or speaking in showerthoughts as usual! I was alive as fuck, and it was thrilling.
I used to drive a taxi and play ukelele for carloads of drunks at the same time, but since it was an automatic Crown Vic, it always remained two distinguishable activities that had to be coordinated, so it was just a pain in the ass.
The modern car is an appliance, just like the modern computer. Yes, there's a minority (sometimes vocal) who like to hack on their cars (computers), but the majority of users want something they can push a button and go.
It's a tool to achieve a goal, a means to an end, not a destination itself. I didn't buy my car because I like driving, I bought my car because it gets me from A to B safely and comfortably.
Most people don't buy cars (computers) because they want to spend all their configuring/troubleshooting/updating/optimizing them.
My first car was actually an "automated stick" VW Bug (1972), which had a stick shift but no clutch. You simply let off on the gas to change gears, and I think there were only three gears in addition to neutral and reverse. I moved on to two manual transmissions after that (a Merkur XR4Ti and a Taurus SHO), and have since stuck with automatic and can't imagine going back.
I can't say it honestly makes that much of a difference whether I'm driving a vehicle with a manual or automatic gearbox. If you're driving a manual, you don't think about gearchanges any more than you think about steering, or breathing. With an automatic, you still need to change gear for it because it can't see hills or corners, and you still don't really think about it.
I hope at some point we'll get a reverse-engineered or otherwise "open source" T56 Magnum, CD009, or similar transmission, so all the driving enthusiasts can continue to maintain our passions with bulletproof, standardized, stick shifts.
I need the thrilling man-machine interface in my life, but with slightly more convenience/safety envelope/practicality than riding a motorcycle.
Thank God I would say that we can finally drive without the stress of shifting gears. Please don't pass off the idea that driving a car with a transmission is a nostalgic, 'mind-opening' thing that makes man more man and less machine. I love my Prius since 2010 and am now super happy with my electric Hyundai <3 Bye bye gearbox
Half the cars I've owned have been manual - Junker 1977 Corvette and 1999 Miata. I agree with all the points made about connection to car, ease of maintenance, etc. The big decider for me was traffic and general road planning. Living in Houston and dealing with jams, stop-start traffic and endless traffic lights was no fun in a manual.
I’ve been driving a stick shift for the past 32 years. Driving an automatic doesn’t even feel like driving. I know the days of driving a stick are coming to an end so I’ve found a new ride - a motorcycle! Holy cow! Riding a bike is a lot more fun than driving a stick! So I’m going to keep going a few more years.
Tried to get a new manual transmission car in the US this summer for my daughter in college. She learned to drive on a manual. It would be a great anti-friends-borrowing-her-car feature. The dealership couldn't tell me how long I would have to wait for that model, so I had to settle for what was available.
My wife and I learned on manuals and thought it would be fun to return to one for our car, back in 2013. Well, it was fun for a few years, but then I switched jobs, and my daily commute had regular bumper to bumper traffic. That sucked the fun right out of it.
Also, as an automatic driver it is mildly annoying to be behind a manual driver at the lights and have to wait for them to get into gear and take off, or to roll back and forwards in anticipation of the lights changing and get uncomfortably close to your bumper... I have no hatred for manual transmission but I will be mildly relieved when the majority of them are off the road.
Some automatics have that issue as well, due to the "stop/start engine" (alleged) feature that is common on modern vehicles with strong focus on fuel economy. I drove one recently as a loan car while mine was in the shop and it was an awful experience... you take your foot off the brakes, and then half a second to a whole second later the engine finally turns over and you lurch into motion.
I have a cheap Peugeot 107 with automatic and a vw golf with manual. Former is awful, really terrible, latter is a joy to use, even after 220K km, never had to change clutch. So maybe it's all about quality.
I love driving stick, except in congested traffic. If I have to be constantly on and off the brakes (and hence the clutch), it's not enjoyable. Best case scenario is cruising on empty roads late at night.
This is definitely not true in the Southern Europe. Even higher end cars are often manual transmission. It’s really difficult to find an automatic, and there’s certainly a big premium on them.
My tutor once told me that “an automatic gearbox has no idea what’s ahead of you on the road”. You are in more control of your vehicle when you drive a manual.
I love manuals. It's so engaging. I don't find it annoying in heavy traffic at all. I love hills. It's fun.
Nowadays, there are convenience features like hill holding and auto downshifting.
One gripe I have is you get improper pedal placement such that you can't heel toe properly unless you're bigfoot or you've bought a real sports car. Manufacturers say this is what people want... screw that.
The article is paywall'd, but I agree, when manuals go away, something more will be lost.
There are the fun aspects obviously. I know that when I want to pass another car, go around a corner at speed, and navigate snowy roads I'll be in exactly the right gear without the computer having to guess what I want. But those are secondary to the demand of attention created by it.