Today, only 3.7% of our sales are for stick shifts. In the late 1990s, over a quarter of sales were from manual transmissions. The popularity of the stick shift has declined over the last two decades. How has the popularity of stick shifts been changing over time? The chart below shows the percentage of sales each year at CarMax that are for manual transmission cars. Of all the features we looked at in this analysis, stick shift was the least popular by far! Only 3.7% of shoppers buy manual transmission vehicles, compared to 86.4% that elect to get Bluetooth® compatibility or 25.6% of drivers who opt for four-wheel drive. To put this in context, a manual transmission is a very unique feature for someone to choose when purchasing a car at CarMax compared to other features. In this article, we’re going to look at the percentage of CarMax sales for vehicles with stick shifts (manual transmissions) over the last year (Augto August 31, 2018). And the city with a CarMax store with the highest rate of stick shift purchases? El Paso, Texas. People in Maine, New Hampshire, and New Mexico are approximately twice as likely to buy a stick shift than the average CarMax shopper nationally. While we know that manual transmission vehicles are less available now than they were twenty years ago, this number has dropped by 86.2% from 1995 when 26.8% of sales were for manual vehicles.Īnd while more than 96% of people nationally drive automatics, the stick shift is still more common in some places over others. We found that just 3.7% of the sales of CarMax vehicles are from stick shift cars. With the technology behind automatic transmission improving rapidly over the last few decades, do people in the United States still drive stick? We decided to analyze data from Priceonomics customer CarMax to find out. Learning how to carefully release the clutch, change gears according to the rev of the engine, and avoid stalling on big hills was all part of driving a car with a manual transmission. Learning to drive stick shift was once a rite of passage. Does your company have interesting data? Become a Priceonomics customer. But I’d be lying to you if I said I haven’t lusted after a MkIV R32 GTI since the first time I saw one nearly 20 years ago.This post is adapted from the blog of CarMax, a Priceonomics Data Studio customer. And a Mazda3 hatchback will have a larger cargo space, making it a more practical car. Depending which generation GTI you’re talking about, some are famous for electrical gremlins, and they will be a little more expensive to own than the Mazda. The GTI is a great car, but VWs come with their quirks. Great on gas, zippy little thing because it weighed so little, and never once left me stranded. I had an ‘06 Mazda3 sedan (non-Speed) that I bought new, and it was the best little car I’ve ever had. All FWD cars have it, it’s just more noticeable/intrusive in higher HP cars like the Speed3.įull disclosure, I am absolutely biased towards Mazdas. It’s a thing that is unique to front wheel drive cars because of (I think) the unequal lengths of the output shafts from the transmission to the wheels, so one wheel can spin slightly faster than the other. From a stop, you can just row through the gears, and remember that 3/4 are straight up and down from neutral, so you don't need to "find" them or push laterally at all, you can let it settle on its own in neutral for half a sec then go straight up or down. Also get a good feel for where the gears are. My advice is go to an empty parking lot, try to get moving with clutch only, no gas and really get a good feel for the bite point first and foremost, then start adding in gas. And if you don't have anyone to show you the ropes, I built this tool up to help people connect: Civics are always a solid choice for learning. An 86/BRZ would be a fun first car too if insurance isn't crazy and a 2+2 is ok. I've heard the Speed3 is a blast, but haven't driven one. Great feel to it, and that car took a beating. I learned on a Mazda 3 and it was perfect.
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