Today I Learned

i am not ordering cars from them anymore /s

Plenty of brands stopped offering manual variants of plenty of models. IIRC BMW practically begged people to stop asking for manual variants, saying it just does not make any sense to mess with the supply chain and the production line and the car itself just to put an objectively inferior transmission inside it.

I got my license in the early 80's, and at that time the cheapest cars were older american beaters with utterly terrible 2 and 3-speed slushbox automatics. The alternative were Japanese cars like Honda Civics, small, reliable, manual transmission cars that got great gas mileage and were way more fun to drive. All these years later I'm still driving a manual, currently a 2021 Toyota Corolla. It's paid for, it gets around 35 mpg, and with regular maintenance it will run until the end of time.

I know American cars have improved a lot since the malaise era but you generally can't get them with manual transmissions, so I'll stick with the imports for now.

Well when your customer base is mostly geriatric...

Yeah. You can't buy a ford or chevy pickup in the united states with a manual transmission anymore.

I know they're not supercars, or anything like that.

Big trucking companies are all going to automatic transmissions in their trucks as well.

What Ferrari and Lamborghini does doesn't concern me but I'll keep buying cars with manual transmission for as long I can get one. I wouldn't buy a new car anyway so that alone gives me atleast 10 extra years. I still refuse to buy smartphones without a headphone jack either. Why? Mostly because of a principle.

Honestly DCTs make up for it, especially when your customer base is mostly people who don't know how to drive anyway.

Using a manual is easy, but using it to go fast can actually be pretty hard. You have to time everything right, compensate for a bunch of conditions, coax the shifter because its using synchros, feather the clutch accordingly, heel-toe downshift correctly, etc. It's extremely rewarding and useful if you actually want to have complete control over your car, but I doubt your average rich guy is gonna want to put that much effort into driving.

Manual shifting a modern Lambo would just be such a chore with how fast the RPM changes too (plus the loss of power from clutch would be even more noticeable). Current high end manuals just choose to stay with 6 gears so the gap stays comfortable, but you obviously lose some efficiency.

DCTs will do that all for you, the only thing you lose is a mechanical shifter (which if you're into manuals you very much miss lol) and the ability to do some clutch tricks (ie loss of some mechanical controls because its automatic).

Now putting a regular old torque converting automatic transmission into a sports car is a waste (and has many examples of such). They are very slow because they aren't deigned to rapidly change gears like you can in a manual. Even a CVT would be better from a practicality standpoint.

I mean, the reality is that manual/standard transmissions are just fuel and effort inefficient at this point. There was a window where automatics were inefficient enough to make learning stick worth it but that is LONG gone. And CVTs, in apples for apples comparisons, kind of are the best of both worlds.

Still pretty shocked since I don't think anyone buys a ferrari or a lambo because they want a reasonable high quality car and nothing screams "I am compensating" like wrapping your hands around that shaft while you drive but... if the goal is performance?

I know autos are faster these days but manuals are so much more fun and always will be. It really sucks that they're going away :(

It's not that I like manuals, it's that I hate automatics randomly shifting and accelerating/slowing down randomly because of it.

It might not be as big an issue in bigger engines cars though, not driven anything bigger than a 1L engine in over a decade.

Looking forward to a direct drive electric car (with customisable acceleration profiles - even better!)

High-end has all been sequential for like a decade

I didn't know what a dual clutch transmission was and found this excellent video while searching. Figured I would share it here. Pretty awesome! You get the direct gearing benifits of a manual with the shifting ease and speed of an automatic.

https://youtu.be/AeAh2KCvE2I

So you need to download a pdf?

It's taken me a while, but I'm okay with automatic transmissions on cars now. OTOH, you can have the manual transmission on my motorcycle when you pry that clutch lever from my cold, dead hands. (I have a speed shifter on my motorcycle now, and I barely ever use it.)

Ok, so they're performance focused. Who is making cars that are built for the most engaging driving experience? Are those "drive a slow car fast" type cars all already built?

Because nobody wants them. Or rather not enough people want them. Hell, kids these days don't even want to get their drivers licenses. For them Uber is good enough.