And how about this as irony? The Americans, perpetually mocked for not knowing how to use a manual transmission, are probably the last bastion of resistance for the manual gearbox.
The most recent example is taken from the statements by Frank van Meel, the head of BMW M, to the Australian Car Advice, during the presentation of the new BMW M5 Competition and M2 Competition, where he revealed that 50% of North American customers opt for manual transmission in the BMW M2 , justifying the decision to keep it in the model, which has just been renewed. In Europe, this figure drops to just 20%.
In the words of Frank van Meel:
Buyers vote with their wallets. (…) being an engineer I would say that from a rational point of view, and although the manual transmission is lighter than an automatic, it uses more fuel and is slower, so it doesn't make much sense… But from an emotional point of view, many customers say “I don't want to know, I want one”. As long as we have these quotas in M2, but also in M3 and M4, we will continue to have manual (boxes) because we listen to our customers… If demand is so high, why not satisfy it?
So thanks to American buyers for purchasing so many BMW M with manual gearboxes. The BMW M2 is just the latest example of the Americans' “love” for manual gearboxes on the M. As an example, since the M5 (E39), there has been no manual gearbox on this model in Europe. However, Americans were able to buy manual M5s on the E60 and F10.
We do not question the words of Frank van Meel, about the greater speed and lower fuel consumption of automatics, but, as we have seen in so many sports cars, or with sporting pretensions, automatics — whether dual-clutch or torque converters — in general, steal part of the interaction between us and the machine . Truth be told, not all of us want to break the record in “green hell”.
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Is there a future for manuals?
If, for the time being, in the USA they have been buying more sporty ones with manual gearbox than anywhere else, here, in the “Old Continent”, manual gearboxes are acquired, above all, in the lower ranges.
But their future, in both cases, is increasingly threatened. All due to the increasing driving automation we see in cars, technology understandably incompatible with a manual transmission.
Frank van Meel, head of BMW MThe bad news is that if one day we have autonomous cars, then manuals can never work again, so that would be, let's say, their natural end.