There is one pastime that older generations always have, and that's telling younger generations how easy they have it. For drivers, that continue to be true. The first cars were an involved affair with wands, pedals, and levers that controlled all sorts of elements that kept cars going in a relatively forward direction.
From self-starters to intermittent windshield wipers, the car has improved over the years to take care of many of these things on their own. The modern driver doesn't have to use choke on their car to get it started, nor are they expected to sit in their driveway idling waiting for the engine to get up to temperature.
Beyond simple conveniences, the entire method of motion is starting to change in cars from hybrid power to full electrics. In the shadow of these big changes, there has been a small death occurring in cars that has some purists in distress - the loss of the left pedal.
The Future Is Automatic
Once a hallmark of both performance cars and bargain-basement economy cars, more and more, the manual transmission is giving way to more complex, and ultimately more efficient automatics and the race car-inspired dual-clutch sports transmissions with their 'flappy paddle' selectors.
Part of that demise is attributed to advances in automatic transmissions. The hydraulic automatic transmission was good for ease and comfort of driving, but they had nothing on the human selector when it came to the most efficient gear to choose for the driving. As a result, if the mileage was a priority then a manual was your option.
Fittingly, since the manual didn't require the complex controls that made the gears self-select, the manual was cheaper. Now that computers have gotten in on the game, and cars have a lot more understanding of what they're being asked to do and the most efficient way to do that, the modern automatic transmission has overtaken the manual in terms of efficiency.
One of the ways that the F-150 with the EcoBoost engine achieves its high miles per gallon rating is through an automatic transmission with a staggering ten gears. By shifting smoothly and quickly between all those gears the engine remains at an optimum RPM for mileage or power in a way that the manual selector cannot.
Out on the track, the dual-clutch selectors offer an advantage all their own. Since Ferrari brought the F1 style gear shifter to production cars with the F355 F1 and Porsche with its Tiptronic transmissions, the dual-clutch paddle shifter has become the weapon of choice for the modern sports car. They split the difference of being able to pick your own gear with the mechanical process of moving from one to the other taken on by technology that allows gear changes to happen within a fraction of a second.
Is There An Argument For The Manual?
In light of these advantages, it becomes harder and harder to make the case for the manual transmission outside of a sense of nostalgia for how cars use to be. Outside of a sense of nostalgia is there really an argument to keeping the manual transmission around? It's a hard feeling to let go of for anyone who grew up ghost shifting their favorite car.
The romantic allure of the manual is so pervasive that Tyrese Gibson was filmed moving the automatic selector back and forth to simulate a manual in 2 Fast 2 Furious. When jump starters come in the size of a small notebook the ability to pop start a car is less and less important.
For the time being there are just enough of the faithful of the left pedal that there are a handful of cars that offer a manual transmission. Most of them are BMWs maintaining the brand's claim to be the 'ultimate driving machine'. There are even a handful of economy cars that hold tight on the manual transmission.
That hasn't stopped the manual from temporarily disappearing from the most nostalgia-driven cars out there, the Miata. Though it did return shortly afterward. As is the way of things these days, there's even a hashtag for the faithful, #savethemanual.
It seems that regardless, before the combustion engine itself packs it up and calls it a day, the left pedal will have long since faded away. No matter how much sense it makes, it will still be missed.