It’s good for spirited driving in canyons and back roads.
There’s satisfaction executing a perfect downshift Into a corner and acceleration out. The mechanics of it is nostalgia from the days before manual.
People who learn on dual clutch and autos. Won’t know.
It’s all about Nostalgia, sorta like why people eat McDonalds even though it really doesn’t taste all that great…it’s all about memories.
The point I was getting at was more that short of someone with a medical limitation, I doubt anyone has ever said “I’d totally love to keep driving a manual except for that pesky pushing the pedal part”.
Well, after they learned how and assuming they weren’t using a race clutch or something like that.
It seems that’s it’s much more of the extra hand/having to pay attention/having to constantly row through the gears issue that this doesn’t get away from.
Sorry, should’ve been more clear: I meant “significant”/life-threatening accidents. I assume a huge accident would be hard to get into, if you can’t get out of first (or out of your parking spot).
But, yes, fender benders and such would be way more common.
Not just your circle. I think it’s pretty dead all around. I mean, are regular garden variety cars exciting anymore? Not really (IMHO). When a car was redesigned in the past, there could be huge differences in the way the new vs. old one drove. Now, it just seem to be that they make cosmetic changes (which I’m sure are still fairly expensive from a manufacturing perspective) and add “tech.” The underlying driving dynamics don’t seem to change (or improve) much. Cars used to have personality; a sign of a maturing industry is that different models aren’t that distinctive anymore.
Oh, that’s an interesting take. I hadn’t thought about someone continuing to drive a manual. I was thinking more about people learning how to drive one. For me, the clutch part seems super intimidating, actually.
One pedal driving an EV is almost like a manual in one aspect.
For anyone familiar, manual was also about downshifting to use engine braking which one pedal driving reminded me of.
I actually did not like OPD at first but after I learned how to feather the gas, it was hard to go back to using the brake pedal in an ICE.
I agree. Except for pleasure driving where I want to brake as late as possible.
I suppose it speaks volumes about American culture if most of the people who don’t drive manual on this thread saying manuals increase accidents because people who drive the manuals don’t know how to drive manual. It’s really weird to have read this thread.
My g/f just got her license for the first time as an adult and doing it in Germany, she learned how to drive manual. She is a new manual driver and she won’t even touch her manual car because it intimidates her. I’m driving it around and we are buying an automatic for her.
I suppose my point is… people who don’t know how to drive manuals already are simply going to buy automatics, they won’t even try. It’s only a very small subset of people who are going to go out of their way to learn the skill, I mean, a fractional number of people compared to who is already on the road.
Accidents will not increase in any meaningful way because driving a manual is slightly more involved than automatic driving or new drivers don’t know how to drive manuals. Manuals are dying because new drivers don’t want to drive manuals and the general public is either buying automatic or electric and manufacturers have simplified their offerings to only being automatic anyways due to emissions and government regulations.
I’ve been driving manual for 14 years and 85% of my cars have been strictly manual. It’s not hard to do and the whole “driving in traffic is a PITA with manual” thing is extremely overblown. I would know. I would drive through NY traffic on workdays with a manual. It only gets difficult after sitting in traffic for two to three hours which is annoying in any car regardless of transmission.
Absolutely wild.
That’s simply not true for everyone. In heavy LA traffic, stop and go is so much simpler in a manual for me when I don’t have to keep on the brake. I looooong for my daily driver to be back to manual. I hate the slushbox. In every situation. I’m not showing off or proving anything. I just get my jollies rowing the gears, and I feel much better control with the clutch. If they made electrics or PHEVs with 3 pedals, I would love it!
Agreed i do the same & it’s not the manual part that’s PITA it’s the actual traffic.
If in the right low gear, you don’t have to constantly change gears in a manual in a slow moving traffic. Unless you’re one of thos who just likes to speed up at any little movement & then break …IMO
Honestly, first gear crawl is good enough to just maintain distance. It’s not hard. My leg does get tired, but that’s only at like 90 or 120 minutes of sitting in it.
Exactly…i think the ones who haven’t done it, have this misconception that you constantly have to keep switching gears…
Shifting gears in traffic is never the problem, working the clutch is. Most new car clutches are so easy to operate that its not even a problem. When you drive something with good amount of power and competition clutch / light weight flywheel is when traffic becomes a killer of your left knee.
I took my manual M4 through downtown manhattan and put on a brave face to see @fredyge94 - totally worth it and I would do it again. I learned to drive manual in a supermarket parking lot at night and I loved it.
Was an absolute blast and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Okay, so for the curious, what IS the technique to use in slow traffic?
Sounds about as promising as amphibious cars. Great in theory, until builders found out that people wanted to be their cars to be as good at being cars as possible and wanted their boats to be as good at being boats as possible.
No one wanted the compromise.
Well said.
It’s not a problem(s) per se.
I used to think the market would reach a stable detente between manuals and automatics. The vast majority of buyers view cars as appliances or as status symbols, and couldn’t care less about fun-to-drive factors. They’d buy automatics. The manual-buying population would continue to buy manuals.
But then it turns out that many things IRL suffer or benefit from network effects and their associated spirals. You may have heard the term in relation to digital life and apps before. The classic example is dating apps. An app that has, say, 5 people from the demographic you’re looking to date isn’t very useful. But an app with 5k or 500k of those people is suddenly a lot more valuable to you. And to them.
IRL network effects often tend to spiral… think of mass transit, urban flight, urban renewal, etc.
sounds like they invented a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. I want a manual in a car because it is a direct connection to the vehicle, albeit through a hydraulic line. It’s the same reason why I like hydraulic power steering. Electronics have a disconnect because all the feedback you feel is fake and manufactured by the software.
What really would save the manual is having a company like Tremec or ZF building a universal style gearbox that all manufacturers could use if they wanted a manual model so enough volume could be around that it would still be cheaper to build a manual transmission equipped car than one with an automatic or CVT
alot of those journalists with a CVT commuter car have a manual “fun”/racecar.
In the US, I don’t think you can just certify an engine/transmission combo, like you can in Europe (which is one of the reasons we don’t get a bazillion engine choices like they do in Europe). Given the low take rate for the manual in the US, I imagine it would still be difficult to make a business case for it.
Also not sure why it would be cheaper to get a manual from ZF since at least a few auto makes already did/do that, and a lot of brands also get their automatics from ZF…