martin
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The Save the Manuals campaign appears to be failing. Americans are rapidly giving up on the clutch pedal, according to new study of over 50,000 leased vehicles from Swapalease. The research also shows that men are increasingly unlikely to row their own gears in comparison to women. Swapalease refers to this loss of interest as "manual drift," but that sounds more like something fun to do in a car with a clutch pedal to us.
The website, which acts as a broker for people trading leases, looked at data from 2012 to 2015, and the results were clear. The company found 3,102 leased manual vehicles in 2012 and 2,417 in 2015 – a drop of 22 percent. Men, though, are especially less likely to choose a model with a clutch. In 2012, 85.4 percent of manual drivers were males and 14.6 percent were females. By 2015, the figure for men dropped to 81.2 percent. Because the total number shrank over the years and males left them more quickly, the proportion of women who wanted to select their own gear actually increased to 18.8 percent for 2015.
There are undoubtedly good arguments to choose an automatic on leased vehicles. They are easier to use, and in today's world an automatic often has better fuel economy and acceleration as compared to a manual. Jeremy Clarkson recently penned an editorial where he supported the switch. He admitted using a clutch was great on the open road, but awful during a daily commute in heavy traffic.
The website, which acts as a broker for people trading leases, looked at data from 2012 to 2015, and the results were clear. The company found 3,102 leased manual vehicles in 2012 and 2,417 in 2015 – a drop of 22 percent. Men, though, are especially less likely to choose a model with a clutch. In 2012, 85.4 percent of manual drivers were males and 14.6 percent were females. By 2015, the figure for men dropped to 81.2 percent. Because the total number shrank over the years and males left them more quickly, the proportion of women who wanted to select their own gear actually increased to 18.8 percent for 2015.
There are undoubtedly good arguments to choose an automatic on leased vehicles. They are easier to use, and in today's world an automatic often has better fuel economy and acceleration as compared to a manual. Jeremy Clarkson recently penned an editorial where he supported the switch. He admitted using a clutch was great on the open road, but awful during a daily commute in heavy traffic.
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