Reply #19: By 2012, only 6% of all vehicles sold in US will have manual transmissions

[Lady Effingbroke]

"The stick shift — an automotive mainstay since the invention of the “horseless carriage” — is slowly going the way of the tailfin and carburetor.

Thanks to technological advances and drivers looking for an easier way to navigate congested roadways, the old standard manual transmission doesn’t come standard much anymore.

“One more generation and you’ll probably have people who have absolutely no idea what a three-pedal car does,” said Bill Visnic, senior technical editor of Ward’s AutoWorld, an automotive trade magazine.

By 2012, just 6 percent of all vehicles sold in the North American market will have manual transmissions, according to a forecast by Germany’s ZF Industries, the world’s largest independent transmission maker."

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