Yahoo Autos Will EVs Spell the Death of Manual Transmissions?
With each passing year the number of cars available in the U.S. with manual transmissions isn't getting any higher. Europe has certainly hung on to them in larger numbers for a longer time, thanks to the prevalence of hatchbacks until the crossover craze began to grip the continent. But in the U.S. they have mostly survived almost solely in sports cars, even though until the early 2000s you could get such a thing like a manual BMW X5.
But we suspect the last era of commonplace cars with manual transmissions is already behind us, even large parts of the U.S. itself had adhered to the automatic religion and helped spread its gospel around the world. The days of a variety Japanese sports cars and captive imports, as well as base-spec Saturns with manual transmissions, already seem like artifacts from another time even though their presence hasn't completely faded from the roads.
The 1990s also seem like the last time that manual transmissions were prevalent in small and cheap commuter cars, and when getting a high school or college car with a manual was not in itself unusual. The days of small pickups with manual transmissions have also largely been left in that blessed decade. So learning to drive a manual appears to have become much more of a niche skill than it used to be 25 years ago, even though it might not seem all that distant.
After all, there was email 25 years ago, so how dated can that time seem after all?
