Only eight percent with manual transmission
01/17/2023
As a review of the year, Automobil Revue published some interesting figures for 2022, i.e. for new vehicles registered in Switzerland. On average, these weighed 1745 kg and had 208 hp, 22 kg heavier and six hp more powerful than the cars a year earlier. 51.5 percent of newly registered vehicles were in the SUV category, while coupés and cabriolets accounted for just 1.7 percent of the market.
What is most worrying, however, is that only eight percent of new cars on the road still had a manual gearbox. That is a small proportion and it is likely to fall even further - not least because of the increase in electric vehicles. And this means that future generations of drivers will grow up without the experience of driving a car with a clutch and gear lever. In Switzerland, as is well known, the rule that only those who passed the test in a manual car were later allowed to drive such vehicles no longer exists. With the abolition of this rule, the motivation to take this additional hurdle in the driving test has also decreased.
How will these people deal with a classic car in the future, which in all probability still has a clutch pedal? Will they prefer not to drive old cars rather than learn this driving technique (retrospectively)?
Even today, classic cars with manual gearboxes are often more valuable than those with automatic gearboxes, sometimes costing five figures more! Will this remain the case if future generations of classic car buyers no longer know how to use a clutch properly? Will these hand-shifted classics one day fare as well as pre-war automobiles do today? It will be exciting to watch ...
P.S. The situation is likely to be slightly different in countries other than Switzerland, but in the USA the percentage of manual gearboxes is likely to be even lower and has been for years ...
