Sales of Stick-Shift Cars Nearly Doubled From 2021 to 2023

As it turns out, the reports of the manual transmission’s death are greatly exaggerated. In just two years, the take-rate on stick-shift cars has nearly doubled. A new report from The Wall Street Journal using data from J.D. Power sheds light on just how many people are choosing to row their own gears in a new car.

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The data shows that so far in 2023, 1.7 percent of all new-car purchases have been vehicles with manual transmissions. On the face of it, that doesn’t sound like a lot, but everything is relative. Go back just one year to 2022, and the manual take-rate was just 1.2 percent. That’s a 41.7-percent increase in just one year. Sure, they’re small numbers, but that is a trend in the right direction, my friends.

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