Quote:
Originally Posted by The HACK
It's a chicken or the egg issue.
First, there is financial incentive for auto makers not to make TWO separate type of transmission for each make and model. Before globalization and federal mandates to standardize testing, offering a manual and an auto has zero impact on the company's bottom line. But now it cost hundreds of millions just to make sure you can sell BOTH a manual and an auto around the world. The math is simple. ANYONE can drive an auto. Not everyone can drive a manual. Financially it's much easier to justify the cost of federalizing an automatic, rather than both an automatic AND a manual.
Now, is it hard to sell a manual because no one knows how to drive it, or is it hard to find a manual because dealerships don't stock it, therefore fewer and fewer people buy and learn how to drive manuals? When I bought my first manual, dealership almost always have a handful of manuals on the lot so it wasn't hard to find the car I wanted. Now, if you're looking to buy your first manual from a dealership? Good luck, you're locked in to like half a dozen models that still makes manuals, and the likelihood of a dealership stocking said manual is slim and NONE. Unless you're looking specifically for 2 or 3 models, like the Civic Type R or Mustang Bullit, there are no dealers willing to stock a manual where an automatic is available (and by automatic I want to include DCTs and automated manuals like DCTs). So if you're not wanting the mark-ups on a CTR or Bullit? Have fun. The last manual I bought off the lot, I got a MASSIVE 25% discount off of MSRP because the dealer couldn't give it away. It's the only manual on their lot, and it's been sitting there on the lot for nearly 2 years with 20 miles on it. No one wanted it because no one can drive it.
This is the end result of years and years of dealership not willing to stock and hold a car that a minority of drivers will look at, with pressure from auto makers to kill a second cost to federalize, and since manuals are harder and harder to find, fewer and fewer buyers know how to drive a manual thus it basically KILLS the manual.
It's not performance, efficiency, or cost of ownership that kills the manual. Otherwise, if those were factors AUTOMATIC transmissions would have been killed long ago.
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So what you're really saying is that the manual is dying because a substantial and increasing number of humans can't coordinate their feet and their hands at the same time.
Okay now I'm depressed.
To compensate I think I'll take the cabriolet for a spin and dazzle my wife with my double clutch downshifts, which she thinks are some kind of magic I do, which I find amusing and, a little bit, you know, energizing -- like the bunny.