New Generation US Midsize Sedans to Phase Out Manual Transmissions

We were expecting this (sad) day to come eventually. Manual transmissions are gradually being phased out from midsize sedans from the US market. They used to be offered as a cheaper alternative to the automatic while also allowing the manufacturer to post the manual car’s economy figures which were superior to the automatic’s.

Times have changed, however, and automatic gearboxes are becoming increasingly advanced and instead of negatively affecting the fuel economy, nowadays they improve it. An example of this is the new 2013 Hyundai Sonata which is no longer offered with a manual option, along with the 2013 Ford Fusion. The decision to drop the manual in the Sonata was due to them selling just 1,725 manual cars out of a total of 225,961 units sold last year in the US.

The percentage of manual cars sold has been decreasing lately and is now hovering around 4%, less than half what it was a decade ago - 8.5%.

Story via Cars.com