So long, stick shift

Manual transmissions are vanishing from center consoles, and if EVs take over, the transmission itself will vanish

On my mementos shelf is the shifter ball from my first car, a used 1975 Fiat 124 Spider five-speed roadster. Ah, lost youth! I don’t mean my lost youth. I mean the lost youth of the stick shift. It’s entered old age and soon will go to glory.

The stick shift in Joe Biden’s 1967 Vette.

A generation ago, according to the EPA’s annual Automotive Trends Report, one-third of cars and pickup trucks sold in the United States had manual transmissions. Now it’s 2 percent.

Even Europe is switching to automatic. A generation ago, almost all new cars sold in the European Union had stick shifts. My wife and I lived in Belgium in the late 1990s, and every car we sat down in, even those belonging to the affluent, was a stick. Now the market is tipping, with sales of automatics increasing in the European Union. Wife and I just came back from a trip to France and the Netherlands, where every friend’s car, Uber or taxi we were in was an automatic.

Our grandparents learned to drive on the old steering-column three-speed manuals that sounded like a lumber-mill saw house. Today only about a fifth of Americans even know how to drive a car that must be shifted.

State drivers’ tests no longer require a demonstration of proficiency with a stick. Most car models are no longer offered with manuals. Of the few that are, most are expensive supercars for the landed gentry. Joe Biden likely will be the last American president who can drive stick.

Recently I bought a nice new Acura RDX; my mixed experience with the high-pressure sales tactics is here. The RDX is the first car I have purchased for myself (rather than for the family) that has an automatic transmission. I like Acuras, but the company’s lineup offers only one stick shift model, the low-slung Integra, and I’ve aged out of low-slung sports models.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Future archeologists will point at the shifter and ask, “What’s what?”

Low-slung sports cars sure were fun. I’ve driven muscle cars and exotics but never wished to own one. It’s an item of pride for me that every car (until now) I ever purchased for myself had a four-cylinder engine, a stick shift (first five, then six speeds) and a sports suspension. Much as I like the new RDX, and appreciate new safety features such as blind-spot alert, when I get into the driver’s seat and there is no clutch pedal I feel sadness – knowing the lost youth is in fact mine.

Two reasons manuals once were the norm is that they cost less than automatics and got higher MPG, saving on petrol. Better computer controls now allow automatic transmissions to do as well as, sometimes better than, stick shifting, so the MPG reason has expired.

The number of gears in automatics has risen steadily – from four in the first mass-produced automatic, the 1939 General Motors Hydramatic, to six, then seven. Today most new automatics have eight gears. My RDX has 10 speeds, just like a bicycle!

Today’s models also accelerate faster with automatic than the driver working the gears. Some supercars have a “launch control” feature that pretty much takes over hard acceleration for pure-automatic lowest zero-to-60 times. (Note: the sole purpose of such features is road rage.)

Improved manufacturing brought the cost of the two types of transmissions into line with each other, which ended the manual shift’s edge in purchase price. Because today there is only a niche market for sticks, their manufacturing expense may exceed automatics. That low-slung sporty Integra comes standard with an automatic; the stick and clutch will set you back an extra $5,000.

About 10 years ago, most marques, even Porsche, had announced the phaseout of stick shifts. There was a wave of nostalgia – car buffs said they wanted to keep shifting themselves, and Car & Driver offered SAVE THE MANUALS! bumper stickers.

When Ferrari said no more sticks, for a while used Ferraris with a manual sold for higher prices than new Ferraris with automatics. But that fad seems to have faded. Apparently rich men (almost all Ferrari buyers are male) want to be photographed by stick shifts, but not actually work the clutch. 

For all carmakers, sales are the ultimate barometer, are stick sales are not good. A year ago, preparing to launch the manual-model Integra, Acura ran flashy ads showing hip-hop artists and similar tastemakers lovingly caressing the six-speed shifter. Sales have been disappointing, and ads now tout the automatic.

Some cars now offer “dual clutch” transmissions that are automatic for the driver – no left pedal to press in during shifting – but can be controlled by little paddles near the steering wheel. These systems answer a question no one asked, namely, “How can I pretend to be shifting the gears without having to use a clutch or a stick with gates?”

Fifteen or so years ago, the auto market was moving toward the “continuously variable” transmission, an automatic with pulleys and belts rather than planetary gears. Now that all the action is in EVs, the CVT is losing traction, as it were.

Photo by David von Diemar on Unsplash

The Tesla dashboard has lots of infotainment, no mechanical shifter of any kind.

Electric cars do not need any kind of gearshift. The powertrain has two positions, FORWARD and REVERSE, with the motor providing power that does not need to translate through gears. Because there is no gearing, in principle you can go just as fast in reverse as in forward. EVs have “governors” that prevent high speeds  moving backward.

Note: because of the way they manage torque, electric cars are MUCH quicker off the line than those with internal combustion engines, including big-block high-compression muscle cars. As government-mandated EVs proliferate, road rage is going to get worse. Average people, especially teens from average families, will die while politicians in their gasoline-powered armored SUVs will not be imperiled.

So if automatic transmissions now cost less and use less fuel than stick shifts, why is there nostalgia for the manual?

Control – or perhaps as a Buddhist would say, the illusion of control.

With a stick shift you feel like you’re driving the car, rather than it driving you. On steep grades up or down, control is superior with a manual. Most of the time there’s no difference in how the car performs, just how you perceive the performance. 

The same inclination that makes people want vinyl records played on turntables regardless of whether the music is any different makes some want stick shifts –doing things the hard way is perceived as better even if you can’t show that objectively it is.

Overall though the trend toward “driver engagement” is less and less. More automation. Many new cars have tiny forward-facing radars that slam on the brakes if you are about to rear-end the vehicle in front; soon all will. Less driver engagement, more safety – how can anyone argue with this?

After driver inputs go down, probably autonomous cars will take over. Nothing can go wrong!

Bonus: The Last President Who Can Drive Stick. During the 2020 campaign, Joe Biden’s advance team staged appearances with him behind the wheel of his beloved 1967 Corvette. Made the candidate seem youthful, though he drove a convertible with the top down wearing a mask, which made him seem, well, fill in the blank. The Oval Office ages all occupants: Biden is visibly different from 2020. Let’s hope he never tries to race with that Vette again.

After a campaign-sponsored spin in the Corvette, Biden said he likes to “flat shift,” which means keep the throttle pressed down while shifting rather than ease off the gas. Flat-shifting produces max acceleration, and is also a great way to burn out the clutch. But Biden likely hasn’t taken a car in for service in 40 years. Flunkies maintain the Corvette.

Bonus: Has Any Recent President Stopped to Get Gas? One of the many ways in which national politicians are out of touch is never having to deal with the hassles of car ownership, a daily experience for most Americans. Political leaders don’t have to deal with high-pressure sales tactics to buy cars, don’t have to argue with mechanics or service writers, don’t lose the day (or the week) if a tire blows. Flunkies take care of everything. Most of the time big pols don’t even need their own cars as drivers are provided.

Politicians aren’t the only ones. Auto executives may be out of touch with typical car-user experiences too.

A memorable instance of enterprise journalism was a 1993 article by the great James Bennet reporting that the incoming CEO of Ford Motor Company “cannot remember the last time he bought a car.” The company simply provided him with cars, no cost, no need to fill the gas tank or arrange maintenance. And people wonder why Detroit declined!

Bonus: Comedy and Stick Shifts. Check the hilarious SNL sketch about a heist movie foiled by a manual transmission.