US EV sales exceeded manual transmission for the first time

Among new cars sold in the U.S. in 2019, electric cars surpassed the sales of manual transmission vehicles for the first time. According to a survey by US web media Green Car Report, out of 17.1 million new cars sold in the US in 2019, 1.1% of vehicles with manual transmissions equipped with three pedals. On the other hand, electric vehicles powered by only batteries accounted for 1.6%. Compared to the previous year, the ratio of manual transmission vehicles dropped by 0.%, but electric vehicles increased by 0.1%. As a result, electric vehicles have exceeded sales of manual transmission vehicles.

After GM launched an automatic four-speed transmission vehicle in 1939, the spread of automatic transmissions without clutch pedals in the United States was in progress. Recently, some vehicles are focusing on automatic transmissions, such as removing manual transmissions altogether from 2020 models.

Of course, it is known that an automatic transmission vehicle has fewer gears than a normal manual transmission vehicle and has a lower fuel economy. However, as technology development progresses, automatic transmissions now have gears that are the same or larger in gears than the manual. CVT, which is the mainstream of small cars, is more efficient than manual transmission and can be used automatically, so it has a fuel economy that cannot be beaten by manual transmission.

On the other hand, an electric motor that generates maximum torque in an instant when the RPM is raised from standstill does not have to shift up sequentially at a large gear ratio to run like an engine. Most of the electric vehicles currently on sale only have a two-speed transmission that automatically changes to a fixed gear ratio or for high-speed driving. Related information can be found here .