Quote:
Originally Posted by unhappymeal
Please read the earlier posts before you respond. The C7 Corvette program at its peak did 35,000 units per year. In total, it was <160,000 units for its 6-year run and the manual take rate program wide was 15% (source: The Corvette Program Lead Engineer).
For reference, BMW does around 150,000 units for the 3/4 series in a single year and they are dropping the stick because it's not profitable. Oh and BMW is using an off-the-shelf Getrag or ZF manual that is bolted to tonnes of other cars, not some one-off unique design.
There is not enough volume for a one-off manual to be profitable in the C8 program.
|
https://www.corvetteblogger.com/201...gineer-no-manual-for-c8-its-a-dying-business/
Chevy agrees with you that there's no profit in the manual anymore.
The Chief engineer for the C8, Tadge Juechter, told Corvette Blogger that there won't ever be a manual transmission for the C8. Only 15% of people bought them in the C7 (Z06) and that number goes down every year so there was no business case to offer one this time around. He said the Z06 used to be manual only but as soon as they offered the automatic everyone bought the auto. Plus apparently they couldn't find any one to build them a manual for the C8 at that low of a volume and be cost effective:
“It’s a dying business,” he said. “The people who make a living building manual transmissions, they see that it’s not a bright future for them. It’s low volume, very expensive. The reason is it’s a low-volume industry. That industry is dying – building manual transmissions.”
https://www.carscoops.com/2019/07/bm...-a-manual-box/
It looks like BMW will still offer the manual in the M3/M4 according to car scoops:
"BMW M chief executive Markus Flasch has confirmed that the
next-generation M3 and M4 will be available with a manual transmission...Manual is very important. The manual stick shift is not a performance-bringer, because an automatic transmission is just faster, you can ask any race driver,” he said. “But it gives the vehicle character and I kind of compare it to people who love mechanical watches; it isn’t more precise and it doesn’t have any advantage at all but it’s a character feature. So is a stick shift.”
The Supra could be a great alternative if Toyota can find a way to quickly shoehorn one of the BMW manuals in there. Plus the Supra is the same size as our cars in length but obviously a lot wider which I think is a good thing. The C8 is a much bigger car by at least 10 inches in length which I'm not a fan of. And the C8 is going to be about 200 pounds heavier as GM is only quoting dry weight of around 3366. All things to consider.