Why are new cars and trucks with manual transmissions becoming as hard to find as a vehicle without “advanced driver assistance technology”?
It’s what the manufacturers want.
The latest example is the BMW, which is on the verge of becoming an automatic-only manufacturer. That includes BMW’s M cars, which are the highest-performing BMWs, such as the M5 sedan (which is already automatic-only) and other M variants of BMW vehicles. Almost all of them are automatic-only. Within a few years, they are likely to all be automatic-only. (READ MORE: The Climate Litigation Wave Crashes Into Hawaii’s Supreme Court)
Not just BMW’s M cars, either. It looks like every Volkswagen will soon be automatic — including the GTI performance variant of the Golf.
This is interesting because at one time — it was not a long time ago — most performance cars came standard with manual transmissions or, at least, offered them. BMW was once famous for selling performance sedans with manuals. For a while, Nissan — emulating BMW — did too.
The reason was that they were also enthusiast’s cars, meaning they were cars bought by people who liked driving them — which is an activity distinctively different from being driven by them.
Cars with automatic transmission were (and are) easier to drive, of course. They require less of the driver. Which is precisely why most drivers prefer manual-equipped cars. They require more of the driver — who must be able to drive the car in order for it to go. It keeps away those who are not able. If the car is manual only (as the Dodge Viper was), it isn’t a car just anyone can drive.
The current automatic Corvette is.
It detracts from the honor of owning a car like a Viper, which is not a car just anyone could drive.
It is true that the Corvette is the winner by the numbers; but numbers are statistics, and they cannot convey emotions. Imagine rating classic works of art according to numbers — as opposed to how they make you feel.
Government feels nothing. Government apparatchiks, the bureaucrats that infest the various “agencies,” feel, at best, indifference to your feelings. Because they can legislate via regulations — which have the force and effect of laws but sans any mechanism, such as elections, that might hold them accountable — the feelings of the apparatchiks take precedence over yours.
If they feel that “higher gas mileage” or lower emissions of the One Dread Gas, carbon dioxide, which has harmed far fewer people than the “vaccines” that have injured thousands, takes precedence, then it will — through the manufacturers who must comply with the regulations being legislated, for all practical purposes, by the apparat.
This is the primary reason manuals are going away — while “advanced driver assistance technologies” are becoming ubiquitous.
There is a feedback loop component as regards manuals; buyer interest in them has declined, even among performance cars. But there is no question it has declined to a great extent on account of uncommonness — caused by regulations.
Regulations put pressure on manufacturers to comply with them. It is easier to comply by selling automatic-only vehicles because it is possible to program an automatic vehicle to shift in such a way as to do better on the tests the regs use to measure compliance. For example, an automatic vehicle can be programmed to shift up to a higher gear sooner, which can increase the car’s tested miles-per-gallon numbers — the engine’s operations are also more consistent, serving the same compliance purpose.
It is impossible to program a manual vehicle, which is a mechanical device. How and when it shifts is entirely up to the driver, who may shift in such a way as to use less or more gas. That is not a problem for the driver. But it is a problem for the manufacturer in terms of compliance.
At any rate, fewer cars (and trucks) are built with manuals. As a result, fewer are in circulation — and fewer people learn to drive manual-equipped cars. They then buy automatic-equipped cars — and the feedback loop waxes. Fewer buyers want manuals. Fewer manual cars (and trucks) are made.
Soon, inevitably, almost none will be left.
“It’s not only a decision of BMW” to walk away from manual transmissions, says Dirk Hacker, who is the head of development for BMW’s M division. “It’s also a decision of the suppliers. If you take a look around, you will see the future for manual gearbox suppliers will decrease. So I’m not sure we will have the possibility in the future.”
Meanwhile, there is a future for “advanced driver assistance technologies” — and for more or less the same reasons. The bureaucrats within the apparat feel they are necessary, so you will buy them. If you drive a new car, you already did. It is no longer possible to buy a 2023 model car (or truck) that does not come standard with “advanced driver assistance technology.”
These are made necessary, in part, because regulations have made cars so easy to drive that a growing cohort can’t drive manual cars — at least, not without the “assistance” of “technology.”
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