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Originally Posted by Archer256
not necessarily, lets face it. Stick is dead/dying few more years and you either have auto/sport shift or only paddles. I wouldnt be surprised if Toyota offers Paddles only as an option.
btw can you have 3 pedals w/ shifters? (sorry if thats a noob question)
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With paddles? It'd have to be a sequential tranny.
If you think stick is dead or dying you're ignoring the rest of the modern world. The US is only 5% of the total population even if we have something crazy like 10% of the cars. Manuals are still cheaper, simpler, and the most efficient transmission aside from a single speed. An automatic typically adds $500-$1000 to the purchase price of the car.
Granted 6spds aren't really taking the US by storm since they were introduced. They're far more common in Europe than here. And they do offer good automatics there too. From what I've read in reports, something like 90% of new cars are sold with automatic transmissions since the 90's. And companies are still selling 5spds and 6spds and people are still buying them 10 years later. So I'd say it's still going even though it's a niche. If gas prices keep climbing up do you think people are going to cling to their automatics? Most people buy used and they're mostly automatics now. I imagine that demand for manual cars is going to go up a teeny bit, eh?