Are Stick Shifts Going Extinct?

These days, it's increasingly rare to find new cars outfitted with manual transmissions -- even in markets that have traditionally preferred them. Learn why in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://auto.howstuffworks.com/stick-shift-news.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Hey brain Stuff Lauren Bolgabam. Here, only around one percent
of new cars sold in the US came with three
pedals and a stick shift. Whole generations of American drivers
have been able to get by without learning to drive
stick at all. At the same time that sales of

(00:24):
these manual transmissions were dwindling, the market became saturated with SUVs, crossovers,
and luxury pickup trucks. It all comes in stark contrast
to the buying patterns in Europe and Asia, where small
manual hatchbacks practically run the streets. Of cars on the
roads there have manual transmissions. But even on those continents,

(00:45):
trends are changing. So why is that. First a look
at the US, it seems like an inherently American trait
to make everything as big and cushy as possible, including cars.
Investors began engineering the predecessors to today's automatic transmissions as
early as the turn of the twentieth century, but it
wasn't until the nineteen forties that efficient hydraulic transmissions came around,

(01:09):
and it wasn't until the nineteen fifties that they became
an option for consumer vehicles, albeit a premium one, but
customers were liable to take that option because they didn't
want to deal with shifting through their commute and because
they could easily cover the additional cost. By nine fifty seven,
automatic gearboxes had already taken over of the US market.

(01:31):
Around the same time, American cars ballooned to much greater
sizes than their European and Japanese counterparts, a trend that
wouldn't be interrupted until the oil crisis of the nineteen seventies.
But in the post World War Two era, those other
places stuck with small, manual cars because they were more
fuel efficient and cheaper to produce. Inexpensive cars were a

(01:53):
necessity in the countries that saw their land and factories
ravaged by the war. Meanwhile, the US was oil rich
and shielded from the economic fallout of the conflict, so
frugality was less of a concern. Americans back then and
today take significantly longer commutes by car, while Europeans are
more likely to take shorter road trips and rely more

(02:15):
on public transit. It's another big reason that Americans so
quickly latched onto the automatic one segment, where manual transmissions
were able to maintain a foothold in the US was
the dedicated sports car market. Many of these cars, from
makers like Porsche, Ferrari, and Datson were foreign imports. They
usually had no automatic option at all. If they did,

(02:36):
it offered subpar performance and driving feel. The cars like
these cemented in American minds the notion that shifting your
own gears was a rite of passage for real car enthusiasts.
In the modern day, however, even sports cars are shedding
their three pedal options. Modern automated gearboxes, be they torque
converter or dual clutch, can now match or surpass the

(02:59):
performance offered by old stick shifts. Worldwide, Ferrari and Lamborghini
have no manual transmissions, and the Corvette just got rid
of its manual option a few years ago. Toyota came
out with their much anticipated sports car revival, the Supra,
also with no manual afford until recently offered manual only

(03:20):
performance packages like the Focus R S, Fiesta ST and
Mustang GT three fifty. They've all been canceled in the
last few years. Cheap compacts across the globe were also
seeing automatic options because things like continuously variable transmissions or
cvt s and dual clutches are now rivaling the efficiency
offered by a stick shift. There are signs that even

(03:43):
in Europe, automatic cars are taking over. For instance, Ford
Motor Company reported that automatics accounted for just ten percent
of the cars it's sold in Europe, but it was
The company attributed the growth to some new features like
cruise control and park assist that aren't compatible with manual transmissions.

(04:03):
The USA Today reported that in the UK, automatic cars
outsold manuals for the first time in sighting statistics from
the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. The technologies we
mentioned earlier, like dual clutches and cbt s, which use
computerized systems to shift the transmission into the right gear,
have made automatics more efficient and economical to drive. A

(04:26):
few automakers today do still offer new manual cars. It
may depend a year to year, but this category currently
includes entries from Porsche, Honda, Toyota, Chevrolet, Hondai and Jeep.
As manual options decline, a subset of enthusiasts have caused
second hand manual prices to trend upwards significantly. In the

(04:47):
case of Ferraris from around the year two thousand. Their
last manual cars can go for nearly double the sale
price of a comparable car with an automated gearbox. Some
custom shops have even taken to outfitting formerly auto equipped
car ours with stick shifts in order to introduce new
stock and cash in on the trend. Just as the
supply of three pedal cars is dwindling, the height for

(05:08):
them is through the roof, quickly turning them into a
speculative asset of ballooning value. Today's episode is based on
the article why the stick shift is going Extinct on
how stuff works dot com, written by talent Homer. Brain
Stuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership with
how stuff works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang.

(05:30):
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