Earlier this year, in February 2020, the website
Green Car Reports, reported that for the first time ever in the US, electric vehicles outsold manual transmission combustion engine cars. The manuals made up for 1.1% of 2019’s new car sales in the US, while the electric vehicles made up 1.6%. Admittedly, both are still relatively small amounts compared to the massive number of automatic transmission combustion engine cars on American roads.
And it is also not entirely surprising that the US overwhelmingly buys automatic transmission cars. According to
a report by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, manual car production peaked at 35% in 1980 and has been declining ever since, while in other markets around the world, the manual still holds its spot. In the manual car-loving UK, for example, back in 2017, automatic transmissions
only made up 40% of the new cars sales. And in South Africa, according to stats provided to us by market research company
Lightstone Auto, in 2017 automatic transmissions also made up only 40% of new car sales. However, that number went up to 45% in 2019. Back in 2015, that number was 33%. South African are by far, an overwhelmingly manual car driving society.
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