this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Weird. I'm sure manuals are cheaper in the UK.
If I was in the UK, it might not be so bad. However, I’m a young adult in the US, and there are not readily available reliable cars common in manual transmissions. For instance, my current car is a 2002 Honda Accord, one of the most reliable vehicles one can get. Except that damn automatic transmission that seems to be made out of glass… and the only way I can switch that to a manual? Find one of 5% of models Honda made that can hook up directly to my transmission, swap everything out, and call it a day. A roughly $6,000 job for parts at the moment.
So I buy a new car, right? Well, since I’d be looking for something much more recent, what kind of cars have options for manual made in the last 10 years? Mostly luxury or muscle cars, or large off-roading vehicles like Jeeps. There are options, I could get another Accord with a manual, but finding one? So far in all of my searches, they just don’t appear in the results.
Considering that 96% of Americans drive automatics, and only 13% of all models of vehicles even offer the option of being manual in the states, and 80% of manual cars produced today being imported into Asia or Europe markets, it really does go to show just how limited buying a manual vehicle in the US is, especially when you live in a more rural area like I do.
In the US, you do not have to pass separate tests. As long as you show you can drive whichever car you take the test in, you’ll get a license.
People just find automatics easier and prefer to drive those here, I guess
It's certainly a lot harder to drive a manual if you've never had a teacher next to you.
Oh 100%, usually self-taught manual drivers end up needing to replace clutches pretty soon, stalling out the engine, and just shifting rough for the first little while. Having someone there to teach you goes a long way, especially when you’re a teenager or young adult with your first car or something.
Save your $6000 and put it towards a Chevy bolt. You get all the benefits of a manual with the reliability and control of a manual. Plus no gas.
Would that I could. I drive 200 miles per day on the highway. Range on a bolt is 220 miles highway range brand new. That… isn’t exactly a lot of room for charge error. Considering on a base AC charge, (no DC fast charging) this can take up to 9.5 hours, I would need to immediately charge when I got home. I don’t have an option of charging at work.
If I had a 300 mile range vehicle it might work tho. However, I also can’t afford a $27,000 vehicle, so ya know.
In the meantime, I’m gonna stick with what I’ve got and deal with an automatic until I can find a good hybrid to suit my needs, methinks
The new bolt has an 11 kw, 48 amp charger so you can get a full charge in about 6 hours.
I bought mine for $17k, with tax breaks they can be had for as low as $14k depending on your state.
My car payments are less than the gas bill on my old Subaru.
That’s… actually not bad. At all. Wow. I mean the range is still an issue for me right now, so I’m hoping that issue could be alleviated soon, but that really wouldn’t be bad. I’m currently spending around $20-25 per day on gasoline. 5 days a week that’s as much as $150/week, so $600 per month, maximum.
Yeah, I can definitely see the appeal… Maybe someday I’ll find a solution to my range predicament and it won’t be so bad
Yeah, I hope you can! Electricity is really cheap compared to gas (unless you live in California or Hawaii - but gas is also expensive in those states).
My work just installed a bank of 6 220 volt chargers that charge a low price (13 cents/kW-hr or about $9 for a full charge), which I feel is a great solution. If your company has a parking lot, maybe ask them if they would consider it? Some of the chargers do billing so it could be provided at relatively low cost. Chargers are a few thousand $ per install.
Not now, but my work office is soon moving even further away from where I live, another half hour or so, so I’m hoping parking is better there. If not, there’s no way I’d be able to do that range