The manual transmission used to be known as the “standard” transmission. Times have changed; the stick shift is not extinct yet, but every year it becomes more endangered. The manual transmission, sadly, serves little purpose anymore. Our electric cars of the future won’t use them. Even today, improved automatics are outperforming manuals on both the race track and on the EPA fuel economy test cycle. Take rates for sticks are too low to justify the R&D costs to offer
Jeep kept the manual transmission alive for the JL generation of the Wrangler. It’s still the enthusiast-preferred option unless you do an extraordinary amount of slow-speed rock climbing. But even in Wrangler world, there’s a steady drift toward the automatic. The four-cylinder engine does not have a manual option. Neither do the diesel engine, the Wrangler 4xe hybrid or the V8 Wrangler 392.
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