JATO Dynamics Study
Manual transmission (MT) in cars is becoming rare in many markets. It’s not just North America, where automatic transmissions have long dominated the automotive world. Information from JATO Dynamics shows that this type of transmission is falling out of favor everywhere.
Europe is an excellent example of this transition. In 2000, the majority of new cars registered were equipped with a manual transmission. In particular, this percentage was 89%, and in some countries such as Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland and Portugal it exceeded 95%. The exceptions were Norway and Switzerland, where approximately 25% of new cars had an automatic transmission.
How the share of “mechanics” has fallen over the past two decades
This percentage remained high for several years until various types of automatic transmissions entered the market. In 2017, the overall percentage of manual transmissions dropped to 78%. In 2022, this figure dropped to 34%, and in the first half of this year it is at 32%.
Traffic jams in many cities are becoming more commonplace, and the price difference between manual and automatic is shrinking. The influx of electric vehicles around the world, led by Tesla, is certainly contributing to this. These cars don’t need multi-gear transmissions.
JATO data shows that in 2010, only 6% of new passenger vehicles sold in the United States had a manual transmission. This percentage dropped to 4% in 2019 and then to 2% in 2020. Over the past two years, manual transmissions have barely registered in the US market, accounting for just 1% of sales. And this year it is even lower: for the first half of 2023 it will be only 0.9%.
In markets such as Latin America or South Africa, the share of manual transmissions is still more than 30%.
