The end of the stick shift

Last week, while enjoying my drive on a two-lane mountain road, I braked hard for a tight left-hander, blipped the throttle twice with my right foot as I worked the clutch with my left and the shift lever with my right hand, and clicked off a quick downshift before gradually going back on the gas as my Subaru Coupe roared towards the next corner. Right then it hit me: This manual transmission thing, that clutch pedal, the stick shift, it’s almost becoming a thing of the past. The quarantine has left me with my automatic daily, I haven't used a manual transmission since late of last year..

Given the number of automatic transmission cars dealers sell annually in the Philippines, it will not be long till we see the stick shift extinction. It seems that majority of the cars displayed in the showrooms today are automatic gearbox units. I couldn’t find an accurate figure in the Philippines. But in the US, 41 out of the 327 new car models sold in the United States in 2020, or 13%, are offered with a manual transmission, according to data from Edmunds. That is a tremendous drop from less than a decade ago. In 2011, 37% percent came with manuals.

According to an CNBC article, Carmakers say the demand for manual transmissions has fallen off a cliff, adding that there may come a day when very few, if any, cars even offer a stick shift.

Throughout much of automotive history, manual transmissions came standard in most cars. Automatics were a luxury feature, designed to relieve drivers of the skill and attention needed to shift gears. They can make it easier to drive a car on hilly terrain and in traffic.

But automatics were also despised for their inability to shift as precisely as a good old stick shift.

Now automatics, with the advent of computers, have become far more precise, and carmakers have also developed systems that can shift to a manual transmission if the driver chooses like those installed in Supercars.Take note that renowned Italian Supercar manufacturer, Ferrari, abandoned manuals entirely nearly a decade ago (mostly because computer-regulated gearboxes eliminate warranty repairs necessitated by, say, accidentally mis-shifting into second instead of fourth).

Still, purists like me still prefer the sense of control and connection to a car we say can only be felt with a stick shift. Manuals are still found on based model cars as the manual transmissions are cheap to build and easy to fix. These models still sell as taxis or shuttle services.

There are also some performance car brands that offer cars with manual gearboxes to please the purists. There are a few such cars that only come with a manual transmission, such as the BMW M2 and some Porsche models.

Manuals will probably not disappear completely from the market entirely in the very near future. But every year, it seems the figures are getting smaller and smaller. Even the Pick-up Truck segment is selling more automatics than manuals.

But come to think of it, the manual transmission is really bound to be shelved in the long run. The wave of the future, the Electric cars, which have no engines, require no multi-gear transmission at all. Tesla electric cars, for example, are single-speed. Electrics are still a small portion of the global market and almost nada in the Philippines.  But if they do take off, that will be the end of the stick shift.