Honda Drops the Stick

Honda just let it slip that the Civic Si (and its Acura-badged fraternal twin, the Integra A-Spec) will soon be automatic-only, like pretty much everything else.

“Due to evolving business conditions, production of the 1.5-liter turbocharged engine paired to the 6-speed manual transmission (6MT) will be paused at the conclusion of the 2026 model year,” reads a statement.

Italics added.

“Evolving business conditions” is Honda’s way of politely saying government regulations. Manual transmissions can’t be programmed to shift at the same ideal moment for scoring high on government fuel efficiency and emissions tests as automatics; in fact, they can’t be programmed at all. They are thus an uncontrolled variable – kind of like the individual. Individual variability is always regarded with the ol’ fish eye by the government precisely because it’s not under the government’s control. So the government emits regs that (effectively) punish that individual variability and reward uniformity. This goes way beyond the manual transmission. New vehicles look increasingly uniform, too – because individual variability in styling is at odds with government regs pertaining to “safety” that serve as a kind of hidden template that causes the end result of all design efforts to look as if they were designed to look the same.

Honda is also uncertain what the regs will be in the future – come 2027 – and it’s hard to set up “certain low-volume powertrain combinations” to comply with regs without knowing what compliance will require. “Although EPA has indicated its intent to revise the applicable standards, the final requirements have not yet been established,” Honda says. “Accordingly, Honda is maintaining its current production plans at this time.”

Meaning, sayonara sticks.

Of course, it’s also true there’s not much demand for manual-equipped vehicles anymore – but it can be credibly argued this is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy; the result of so few manual-equipped new vehicles being available. People who never learn to drive stick are probably going to stick with automatic-equipped vehicles because that’s all they know how to drive. More specifically, because people tend to buy cars because they need to drive places and what good is a car they’re not able to drive? It’s true they could learn – but how? On a brand-new car?

It was once true that most (or at least, a lot) of teenagers learned to drive stick because the kinds of cars most teenagers had access to were economy cars and these always came standard with a stick. But economy cars no longer exist. Not in the new car market – and not for at least the past decade. They have been replaced by entry level cars, all of which come standard with automatics (as well as AC, power windows and locks). So – for at least the past decade – most new drivers learn to drive in an automatic car and for that reason never learn to drive stick. The potential market for stick cars grows smaller and smaller.

In a very strange turn of events, the standard transmission – as manuals were once called, because that’s just what they usually were – has become a kind of luxury feature, by dint of being (typically) an option that’s often only available with an expensive trim. As a for-instance, the 2026 Toyota Tacoma I wrote about a couple of weeks ago (see here if interested) is the only mid-size truck that even offers a manual and this option is only available in the TRD Sport with 4WD, which lists for $40,315 to start – or about $8k more than the base SR Taco. They’re also hard to find in inventory; you generally. have to order (and wait for) one if you want the manual.

The Mazda Miata is pretty much the last new car that isn’t a very expensive car that still comes standard with a manual.

Cars like the Civic used to come standard with them – and not just the high-performance Si variant. Now the Civic comes standard with a CVT automatic, like most of the other once-economy cars. The manual-equipped Si was among the last holdouts, probably because even if most people bought the automatic, the availability of the manual gave it a halo, as they say in the car selling business.

Now, Honda says this is not a cancellation but a pause – implying that the manual will return at some point in the future. But nothing specific has been said about that, which (to a cynic) suggests the “pause” will become permanent absent a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth sufficient to get Honda to reconsider. In either case, it’s likely to mean that the remaining inventory of manual-equipped 2026 Civics and Integras are going to cost more because dealers will be able to charge more now that the word is out that Honda won’t be making an more manual equipped Civics or Integras (for this market, at least) after the end of this year.

Gather ye rosebuds – and third pedals – while ye may.

. . .

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