We gearheads love our manual transmissions. We’re a minority, though, and as trends have changed, the stick shifts we love are increasingly hard to come by. As it turns out, less than 1 in 100 new vehicles come with three pedals in the US—and it has been that way for some time.
The sad news comes to us from official government statistics. The 2024 EPA Automotive Trends report covers cars, trucks and automotive technology in rich detail. The report can tell you all about the rise of multi-port fuel-injected engines, or how brushless AC blowers are worth minor efficiency gains. It’s a treasure trove of facts and graphs stretching all the way back to 1975, and it’s just been updated with a full slate of data from 2023.
The saddest tale the report tells? It’s that our beloved manual transmission is increasingly becoming irrelevant.
The EPA notes that the decline of the manual is a “notable trend.” Back in 1980, just under 35% of new vehicles in the US came with a manual transmission. It’s been a pretty steady decline ever since, as per the graph above. The EPA report notes that manual transmissions sank below 1% of total production in model year 2021, and have remained there ever since.
Imagine if you filled a parking lot with 100 random new cars from the US market. Only one of those cars would have a manual gearbox. The rest would all be automatics, CVTs, or EVs.
It’s worth acknowledging that there are dissenting statistics out there. JD Power reported there was a big rise in manual sales in 2023, with a take rate of 1.7% of new vehicle sales in 2023. However, this was a partial-year result, so it’s hard to argue against the EPA’s more authoritative full-year results. In the very same time period, data experts at JATO Dynamics similarly concurred with the government—the take rate was definitely below 1%.
Why did this happen? Many will want to point to automakers, decrying them for eliminating manual options in many models. Indeed, as we discussed earlier this year, just one five-speed manual was available in the US for 2024, along with 27 six-speeds and two seven-speed models.
However, this ignores how automakers plan their lineups. They build what sells, and they cut what doesn’t. Manuals were dropped because the broader market was less interested in them.
Ultimately, the decline of the manual seems to be down to what drivers actually want. Automatics have been more efficient than manuals for over a decade now, thanks to the advent of more gear ratios and lockup clutches. They’ve always been an easier drive, too, and most will agree they’re quicker on a race track as well. Most new car buyers want a comfortable car that’s easy to get around in—they have no interest in shifting their own gears.
These days, cars are just appliances to most people. That’s left the manual transmission as a novelty option for a die-hard group of old heads, and only a handful of them actually buy new cars. We love that the stick-shift Nissan Versa still exists, but how many of us are going out and buying them? Similarly, we’ve seen the manual return to legendary names like the Toyota Supra and Nissan Z, but few have laid down the cash for reasons of price, availability, and taste.
I’m not worried that manuals will die out entirely. Automakers are still selling a solid range of options, particularly in enthusiast categories like sports cars and off-roaders. Even if manufacturers dumped them tomorrow, there’s still a ton on sale in Europe, where they still make up a double-digit percentage of sales. Besides, if the oldheads can keep pre-war Model Ts running, we can do the same with our dodgy Fox Body Mustangs and rusty Miatas.
Ultimately, though, the fate of the manual lies with us. It’s up to us to keep it going. I have every faith we’ll continue to do so.
Image credits: Lewin Day, EPA report
I’d be fine with an automatic if they make a car that fits the attitude, but it seems almost everything is attempting to be sporting against its form and feel and the typical buyer demographics that won’t utilize the capability the ride is compromised for. Of course, all these jacked up goof mobiles need to be stiff to reduce rollover risk, so I guess they might as well pretend it was intentional to make them “sporty”. Give me an actually comfortable car that rides nicely and I won’t complain about an automatic, but otherwise, when I have no other option, I’m buying the cheapest POS I can put on the road as I won’t spend an extra dime for the terrible driving experience of most cars and certainly not with all the extra crap they put in more expensive junk that I’d pay not to have.
If people want comfortable cars, why aren’t more cars actually comfortable? So many seats suck with hard bottoms and stupid bolsters of no use to 99.9% of cars, center consoles and dashboards and door cards are massive and restricting on space, active “safety” bullshit is a constant annoyance (even the damn seatbelts nowadays grab like rapist in an alley at the slightest hint that you might slowly lean forward even at a stop), giant displays are blinding and make simple and common tasks more of a chore (and a more dangerous one and I would think stress would count as discomfort), suspensions even on eunuchmobiles are Nurburgring tuning bullshit that crash and bang over normal roads, and wheels are heavy Conestoga wagon size behemoths wrapped in rubber band tires.
I think this is a bigger illustration of the enthusiast market in general. Cars that are truly enthusiast are going away I and there are shadows of their former selves.
Once my 2010 GMC regular-cab, 2wd, 5-speed truck rusts to the point where it’s unable/too unsafe to drive, (Like my ’95 S-10 did, which was why I ended up buying the GMC in 2015) I have no idea how I will replace it. I would want another small-ish truck that follows the 1-2-3 rule.
1 row of seats
2 doors
3 pedals.
I don’t think one of those have been available new since 2012, other than the up-to 2019 RAM HD, which would be way too large for me.
Maybe I’ll end up going somewhere south to find an old S-10. At least they’re easy and cheap to work on when something breaks or wears out.
Even in the dry parts af California S-10s have rusted to nothing. My mom ended up up in the hospital 20 years ago when the door on hers rusted and it fell off the hinges and broke her leg.
I don’t see any s-10s at all these days. Worst truck we ever had. The engine and transmission were ok, but everything else was awful
I only drove manuals until I had kids. Now I have a minivan and an EV. I’m going to yell at cloud somewhere now.
I’ve requested a WRX with a standard for my next company car.. fingers crossed they follow through for me!
Lewin, you left out a large reason this is the case: Global emissions regulations (and partially tied to this is manufacturer expectations for volume levels for local/regional sales).
The take rate on many enthusiast cars like the VW GTi was quite high in the US at around 50%. But because EU regs meant they could not pass a manual GTi there and volume for the US would not be enough for development cost and scaling manufacture it killed it.
I expect this will be the case for the foreseeable future unless there are some emissions exceptions for low volume, enthusiast cars that few of us will be able to afford. Maybe we’ll be able to pick some up used one day.
I do, however, concede the general point that the take rate for automatic overall has been in massive decline for some time. Most anything that takes more effort to learn and live with follows that path I guess.
I am part of the problem. If it is a problem.
My current car is a Honda Accord (6A) that was bought to replace a Jetta with a stick when I was married to a woman who knew how to drive a manual, was very competent at it, but didn’t enjoy it.
I am no longer married to her (for other reasons). So now I have a car that should last another 10 years, easily, that makes no sense to replace economically.
I live in a fairly hilly city and broke my left shoulder earlier this year. So, having a car that can be driven essentially one-handed has been a good thing.
I loved driving the Jetta around Seattle and put over 160,000 miles on it with the original clutch. The handbrake is your friend on upslope launches from a stop.
There is no way I would buy a manual transmission car without a handbrake. I can’t imagine trying to do that with a binary parking brake button.
So, there’s another article suggestion… Is there a car that comes with a manual transmission, but only has an e-brake?
I never drove a Subaru or any other car that might have had the hill-holder function. So, I don’t know how that worked or what it felt like.
Honda/Acura has that hill-helper thing too. It works great here.
In my Acura, I can either make it turn on for x seconds every time I stop (not sure why that exists) or I can turn that off and it’ll only put the brake on if I’m on a hill over a certain steepness. A little light on the dash lets you know it’s on and the brakes hold until the car moves forward.
Bronco manuals have a hill holder and a crank in gear feature plus don’t forget the crawler gear!
My 2018 Camaro has hill hold, and so did the Sonic I had before that. It’s very intuitive: if you’re stopped on a grade steep enough, it’ll keep the brakes on for a few seconds after you let off or until you press the gas, so there’s very little if any rollback in the half second between getting on the gas and easing off the clutch. GMs at least will also hold the brake if you’re facing downhill in reverse.
The Sonic had a handbrake and the Camaro has a button. I never had to use either even when visiting back home in the Rockies. I don’t remember hill hold being an advertised feature but it’s awfully nice.
It holds the brake until you release the clutch. Used to be mechanical, now electronic and other manufacturers have taken it up. Why anyone ever taught people to grab a hand brake to hold a car on hills, I’ll never know, but with a weak parking brake and nobody to mis-teach me how to drive, I naturally learned to use my right foot on brake and throttle. This also made rev matching under braking a very quick learn once I realized that it does the same job as heel-toe, but with what I find to be much easier control and without the awkward leg/heel movement that is probably why people say they don’t use it unless they’re on a racetrack whereas I use it as part of casual driving.
I drove a manual Peugeot rental in Portugal this summer, and was pleasantly surprised (and relieved) to discover it had a hill brake. Game changer—especially when parking on the hilly roads of Lisbon. Why can’t we have nice things like this in the states?
Neat, now I’m a 1%er. A truly elite(ist) group if ever there was one.
Where do you live so I can come protest the 1% that everyone seems so angry about.
Kind of like “Yellow Cars Now Make Up Less Than 1% Of New Car Sales”. When they’re not manufactured… tough to buy them.
Another more pressing issue: finding a transmission shop who will work on a manual. The big independently owned shop here in my city turned away my 2006 CR-V; It’s still working but I’m going to have to find somebody soon to keep her on the road.
That’s nuts
I would buy a manual transmission for all of my cars if they were available but the choice has largely been made for me and driving a manual isn’t the top of my priority list. Just give us the option and I’m in!
Does this mean I should or should not continue to look around for a Ford Model T?
“There’s still a ton on sale in Europe.”
There *are* still a ton on sale in Europe.
Hmm I dunno… the ton in this case is singular…?
Nope. “Collective nouns” can be difficult. In this case we are not referring to a single unit – one ton – but are speaking of many different individual units, so we use plural verbs and pronouns.
Most publications, if they pay attention at all, tend to use the AP Stylebook. One of the AP’s entries is “Our collective nouns entry advises that nouns that denote a unit take singular verbs and pronouns: class, committee, crowd, family, group, herd, jury, orchestra, team.” That’s not what we’re doing here.
The Chicago Manual of Style is another important reference, and it provides some examples:
“The Chicago Manual of Style
The ruling majority is unlikely to share power.
(but) The majority are nonmembers.
The audience showed its appreciation.
(but) The audience rushed back to their seats.
I’ll be here all week, I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. 🙂
I keep telling them to hire me as a copy editor lol
They mostly do a GREAT job here, especially as compared to…one other…car site. The “there’s [plural noun]” thing has become widespread across all of American English and it’s just nails on a chalkboard to me.
I’m going to lose this fight to correct all of American idiom astonishingly badly, which sort of means that, by definition, I’m now wrong. But I’m going down swinging (might keep it to once a month here, though)!
Honestly the sad thing is how good it feels to drive a normal automatic after suffering with a cvt. They are so bad, I really hate how it is the norm now.
I just bought a Mustang GT manual because I wanted to get one while they are still being offered. It will almost certainly be the last new manual transmission car I buy.
in 1999 we wanted a manual and had to special order a manual as no dealer would carry one on the lot.
I drove manuals from 1988-200? and will never have a daily driver manual again. I would love a 3rd car hot hatch. I also now offroad with an automatic, it is so much better. Also manuals now have fewer gears and are less efficient.
People really underestimate how nice it is to have an automatic off-road. I don’t have to worry about the clutch temp or stalling in a water crossing and having to get pulled out. Plus, it’s just less tiring, which is always nice considering that I spend anywhere from 3-8 hours on the trail plus the 4.5 hour round-trip home.
I was a die hard MT 4-wheeler until I came across a great deal on a CJ-7 V8 with an automatic. Then I saw the light. 4 wheeling is so much easier with an automatic, you can worry about things other than if your truck is going to stall out.
If you wanted easy then why off-road?
It’s not easier in the sense that it takes away the challenge, it’s just less exhausting and you lose a pretty big stressor (cooking the clutch). It’s like having more ground clearance. Yeah, you now have to think less about the lines you take, but you’re also less likely to damage something and cut your trip short. It’s just a more pleasant time. After all, off-roading is meant to be fun above all else.
Because the challenge is building the vehicle that can traverse the terrain easily. Same reason people put lockers in their off-road rigs (I have a Detroit Locker in the back) or put larger tires and a lift on to increase all the angles (I have 35″ tires and a 2.5″ lift with a 2″ body lift.)
Yes going up a sandy/muddy hill is so much easier and calmer with an auto.
Golf R with DSG here. Still fun to pull on the left paddle and bang off a downshift. The dealer tried to kid me into a manual, and I responded “Do you even drive around here?” I have weekend cars with manuals, and I think they end up as weekend cars because the daily stop and go commute is just too painful with a stick.
I’m a delivery driver, and almost exclusively drove MT cars for 25 years. Then my knee started getting sore after every shift. So I made the change to first an AT, and now a CVT hybrid. I still have a MT e46 BMW convertible for when I not at work.
Take rate?
No.
You mean:
Offer rate.
I couldn’t even order a manual in most of the cars I’m interested in. It’s just not available. I’d pay extra for one.
Exactly, it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. Make less manuals and then tell us that manuals don’t sell.
Manual transmissions are dying because of emissions and efficiency in the US. Plain and simple. OEM’s sre incentivized to build cars without stick shift. Secondary to that everyone can drive an automatic but only some can operate a stick shift. So the market is bigger for automatic vehicles.
Someday the argument will be “Why the hell does anyone want to drive a car when it can drive for you…”
So much this!!! Manuals are being killed because of specifically because of CAFE standards in the US and Emissions in Europe. My Chevy SS Manual costs $1000 more than an Automatic because of a gas guzzler tax, and I still had the skip shift. The specific thing that happened is all the cheap manuals disappeared because emissions made them crap to drive because of rev hang. (Just drive any PZEV manual). So manufacturers have to keep there enthusiast manual fleet small in order to meet fleet average fuel economy and emissions standards. I honestly think that demand for manuals exceeds supply at this point.
Yep, emissions killed the MINI Cooper manual. It had a 50%+ take rate on the performance trim cars in 2023, but it was still too expensive to separately mess with emissions testing/designing the manual version, apparently – a decision made by BMW corporate in Germany, and a disappointment for MINI USA, supposedly.
Whilst I am certainly a lover of manual transmissions, in my opinion, the real issue to me is the quality of the transmission/clutch.
I work at a Ford dealership and was really excited to drive a stick Bronco.
I finally got the opportunity. It sucked. The clutch feel was way too light for my liking. I’m sure there’s a chance I’d get used to it were I to buy one, but the initial experience was a turnoff.
Granted the Bronco is the first Ford manual like it in a some time, but for cars that have continuously offered manuals, the recent/current era seem to be worse than earlier ones for some reason or another. Noticed this with some reviews on the last gen Accord manual being not as good as earlier Hondas. Sometimes it’s other aspects of the usability like rev hang (also a frequent Honda complaint) just making it harder to use, but it seems like that’s the compromise to meet fuel/emissions targets.
Ford clutches have always sucked as long as I have been driving. I don’t know why Ford continues to design them that way. It all depends what you are used to; I haven’t driven a new bronco but I’m willing to bet that the clutch is pretty similar to the 16 mustang 5.0 manual I have driven. German clutches also have a non linear funny feel, Japanese clutches seem to be the best but I’ve owned GM and Jeep clutches that were just fine.
Well, that’s the weird thing. All three of the manual Mustangs I’ve had (’15, ’18 and ’22) had/have a great clutch pedal feel, even with the MT82 trans. The manual Fiesta and Focus models, on the other hand, were as soft/spongy/vague feeling as the Bronco.
I went from a GTI manual to a Bronco manual and I don’t feel that it’s spongy at all. You can change out the clutch spring, supposed to make it feel more linear, I have the part but it’s a non issue for me so I didn’t worry about it.
Maybe the bronco doesn’t have the “ford feel” that I don’t like that apparently you do. The fiesta and focus models were designed in Europe so it makes sense for them to feel different from mustangs and rangers I’ve driven. I’ve been considering a Bronco manual, guess I should find one to test drive.
The GRZ twins are bad, too. It had very poor feel and inconsistent engagement. I was glad it at least wasn’t flaccid feeling. Fixed with a clutch pedal spring. My Focus ST wasn’t bad. Nothing like an old cable, but good luck making it traffic friendly with modern power.
My daily drivers have always been manual trans cars, but I have to admit if I was in the market for a new daily it would probably be an automatic. My commute is short and boring, and I already have another 425HP manual car in my fleet for fun. But I tend to keep cars for a long time, so I’ll probably still be driving stick for a few more years.
I’ve bought 3 since 2015. I don’t see me buying any more new ones though.
Good riddance, manuals. We’re one step closer to CVT domination.
It’s just the same constant droning with you, change the gear.
You can’t sell what you don’t offer for sale, and you can’t buy what isn’t offered for sale.
That’s my experience too. I know many people who wanted manuals in civics and corollas and others, but when it came down to it, they wanted to walk into the dealer and drive out in their new car. When the nearest manual is 3 states over or a 3 month wait for it to be built, no one opts for that in a normal car. Sports cars sure, but if you can’t get the commuter you want when you want it, you get something you didn’t want.
I just got the Bronco with MT I ordered in August. Paid MSRP. Could have got an auto at a discount with no waiting. Most people have more sense, and that’s not including the large majority unwilling to buy a car they might not know how to drive.
This is what happened with my 2015 Fit. There were none yet. Given the gearing for highway driving I dodged a bullet.