You know what I’ve never done? I’ve never written an op-ed for CNN about how I think people who appreciate wine are a pack of pretentious numbnuts who think they can taste leather and oak and plums in something made exclusively out of grapes. I’ve never done that because, while I am fully capable of drinking wine, both the maroon kind of wine they call “red” and the golden kind they call “white” I don’t really give a shit about wine, and I don’t know jack shit about wine, and as a result, have no business at all telling my opinions about wine to anyone. CNN should definitely not hire me to write a wine op-ed because it would be terrible. I also think this same logic should have been applied to Paul Hockenos, whom CNN paid (presumably; this could be part of some charity work for all I know) to write an op-ed bitching about cars with manual transmissions, and manuals’ decline, which Hockenos is happy about. But the problem is that it does not seem like Hockenos really ever understood the appeal of driving stick, nor does he seem to care about manual transmissions, at least beyond the fact that they annoy him, somehow. Which is probably why his op-ed, charitably, sucks, and, even worse, is strangely and needlessly sexist.
I don’t really know anything about Paul Hockenos, other than he does know how to drive stick, which isn’t surprising since he’s based in Berlin, where manual transmission cars have been much more common than here in America. But as soon as he starts to talk about driving manual transmissions, things start to go wrong, fast. This is from the very beginning of the op-ed:
“For old-school connoisseurs of the automobile — usually men — driving means operating a beloved vehicle by touch, with three pedals underfoot and a shift stick at hand.
In Europe, this clientele is responsible for a good deal of the moaning about manual transmission’s demise. And perhaps nowhere is it louder than in Germany, the home of Porsche, BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes Benz.
Take for example the German automotive writer for the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung who waxed melancholy in a heartfelt “homage to the good old days of the clutch and gear stick.”
“What could be a greater pleasure… than tooling along winding roads in a sports car at high speeds? Accelerate, downshift before the bend, turn in, roll, upshift again, and ‘fly away,’” he wrote.
He affectionately describes the stick shift’s smooth knob nestled in his palm. (Sigmund Freud would have had no trouble deducing the grounds for this allure.)
Okay, two big things are worth pointing out here: the “usually men” part is the first. There’s no citation for this and while sure, maybe you can find surveys or studies or confident ex-recto guesses from experts that more men drive stick, who gives a shit? Plenty of women drive stick, and enjoy driving stick, and it’s frankly just stupid to try to cast the enjoyment of a manual transmission as anything related to gender. I’m not having it. It goes against everything we believe here at the Autopian, which is that cars and their enjoyment are for everyone, and I’m pretty sure penises are not required for the shifting process, and if you find you are using yours for that, well, I wish you well on your sexual journey, but it’s not really part of driving.
Speaking of penises, I was also deeply disappointed to see that incredibly tired, century-old Freud reference there. I mean, come on already: How long do we have to endure that lame-ass joke that stopped being funny around the Great Depression? Yes, automobile shifters, much like salamis or rocket ships or some fire hydrants or a variety of squashes or any number of other things roughly tube-shaped sort of resemble penises. I get it. Everyone gets it. Children get it. I bet most dogs get it.
I also get that when you feel the shift knob in your hand it doesn’t mean you’re imagining it’s your dick, if you have a dick. Or even if you don’t. If you want to touch a dick and have one, I can’t think of a more achievable dream. I managed it at least twice today before lunch.
The point is, the whole Freudian thing about stick shifts and dicks is stupid and tired and lazy, and it’s decades past its retirement age. Grow up, Paul.
So, what’s the point of this op-ed? It’s not really clear. Hockenos seems put out that there are still groups of people in Europe and America that genuinely seem to enjoy shifting their own gears, and he likens this predilection to the famous book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but only does so in the most superficial and dismissive way, with no effort taken to dig into any reasons why someone might appreciate understanding and appreciating how the machines in their lives work. Instead, we get this:
“It’s not just that I cringe at the grating screech of a botched downshift, that high-pitched sequel [sic] worse than fingernails across a chalkboard. The sound upbraids and shames me for having wronged the drivetrain. But this obviously never happens to alpha men, the kind who love their engines and coax them to purr.”
The fuck are you talking about, Paul? Okay, you missed a downshift, big deal, it happens to everyone. There’s no reason to go into a shame spiral here. If so, though, the shame you’re feeling is on you, and this whole “alpha men” thing – what? Loving one’s engine and “coaxing them to purr” has precisely one metric fuck-all to do with any “alpha male” bullshit. Again, driving stick has nothing to do with gender – it’s about how it feels and the fact that it’s just fun to be able to have that level of control of your car, and people who really enjoy driving very often – though even then not always – like the experience of shifting their own gears.
[Mercedes’ Note: I have to agree with Torch, here. At the bare minimum, Paul is ignorant. At worst, he’s no better than the men he wants to admonish. There are a whole lot of women, non-binary folks, and everyone in between who like cars and yes, also prefer their cars with manual transmissions. I’m pretty sure those enthusiasts aren’t trying to be “alpha men.” Yes, men are the most visible in the car world, but that doesn’t mean women don’t exist! I’ll take a stick any day of the week, sorry, Paul.
Stop trying to gender the joy of driving or turn it into some toxic thing only meant for people who hate the world. The truth is that anyone can love cars and they very much do. -MS]
That’s it.
This whole thing is as free of a point as a basketball, or perhaps a coconut. Hockenos attempts to steer the narrative to point out that in modern cars, automatics are actually faster and more efficient than manuals, and yes, that’s true. In fact, it’s been true for a couple of decades now, and the reasons Hockenos gives are generally right: modern automatics have more gear ratios than manuals – 10-speed automatics are common – and the computers that manage the shifting tend to do it better and faster than a human can. But don’t feel bad; that’s the transmission computer’s only job! You, on the other hand, have all kinds of other things to do beyond shifting gears, and you’re more fun to grab a drink with.
There are also CVT transmissions that have effectively infinite gears, and while those often feel like crap, they’re extremely efficient. That’s all true, but also has nothing to do with why people want to shift their own gears. I mean, maybe back in 1979 efficiency was a big reason, but now? Now it’s because people want to.
Remember, cars aren’t rational things, and they never will be, and wanting to shift your own gears isn’t rational, but who cares? If cars were rational there would be only a few basic models and everything would have interchangeable parts and they’d really be appliances and it would be an entirely different industry from what actually exists right here in our reality. I mean, think about the car industry; do you really need a car with 700 horsepower? Of course not, but there are many you can pick from with that much power. Do you need turn indicators that move like the signs on the Vegas strip? No, but they’re fun! Do you really need a car with massaging seats or a removable roof or one that can corner like a panther on speed? No, but all of those things are thankfully available to anyone with the money or a willingness to take a terrible loan.
Whatshisname knows this, I think, and I think knows that his arguments about how much more efficient modern automatics are don’t really make a case for the demise of manuals, because the percentage of manual cars being sold is so tiny as it is. As he says in the op-ed:
These are among the reasons why it’s ever harder to buy a new manual-transmission model of any kind in many countries. In the US, less than 1% of new models have stick shifts (compared to 35% in 1980), according to the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s really only sports cars, off-road truck SUVs and a handful of small pickups that still have clutches.
Less than 1%! That’s nothing! People who still choose to drive a manual car are not causing any real environmental harm because the numbers are so low. It’s just not a factor, and certainly not a reason to advocate for the wholesale elimination of manual transmissions.
I mean, I’m not even sure that’s his goal here. I have no idea what the goal is. He later champions EVs as a sort of savior for, I guess, environmental issues with all combustion cars, manual or otherwise, which further shows he just simply does not understand why people drive manual transmissions. This is made clear in the final lines of this inane piece:
But for those aficionados who really can’t go without a clutch and gear shifter, Toyota is planning a realistic-feeling fake manual transmission for some EV models.
It serves no purpose whatsoever — save to comfort bruised egos.
Egos? Bruised or otherwise, what do egos have to do with wanting to shift your own gears? There’s some kind of unpleasant insecurity going on here, or something. Did someone shitty tease Paul about not driving stick well at some point? If so, I’m sorry, but that is not why people want to drive a stick shift. It’s just something I and many others enjoy, and for fuck’s sake, why is this guy even writing about it at all?
He doesn’t want to drive stick — fantastic, pretty much every car out there now is available with an automatic. Absolutely no one is forcing him to drive stick. His screed against manual transmissions feels like someone looking up a band they don’t like, driving a couple hours to the venue where they’re playing, then setting up a table and handing out pamphlets stating that they don’t like the band. It’s fine not to like the band. It’s fine to tell people you don’t like them. But, at some point, when you’re going through all this effort to let people know you don’t like something, for reasons that really only apply to you, it gets weird.
This is all just a protracted effort to yuck other people’s yum, a cardinal sin around here, and an absolutely useless endeavor. No one cares that you don’t like driving stick, Paul. No one understands why you’ve somehow conflated it with this idiotic idea of masculinity in your head, and no one really thinks the tiny number of people driving manuals is causing environmental collapses.
No one is making you drive a stick-shift car. You can relax. And maybe next time you decide you don’t like something you have nothing to do with, don’t know much about, and about which you have nothing substantive to add, maybe consider not writing a time-wasting article about it for CNN?
That’s exactly what I’m doing with my wine article! See, I’m actively not writing it right now, as we speak! Because, like you and driving stick, I have nothing of value to add. And I might say something really stupid, like how wine is just for Alpha Females, and that would be deeply embarrassing.
Top photo: Paul-Hockenos.com (modified)
Daily Driving A Manual In Traffic Isn’t That Big Of A Deal, Relax
Survey Shows More Than 90% Of UK Teens Will Get A Car With A Stick, Are Cooler Than American Teens
Here’s Exactly When Automatic Transmissions Became More Efficient Than Manuals
When Did We Get So Weird About Tall Shifters?
The ‘Quantum Leap’ Reboot Has The Worst Fake Manual Shifter Ever Seen On TV
I have a strict policy of never, ever reading an auto related article on a non-auto related site or by a non auto journalist. They are always wrong. I saw this on CNN yesterday and DID NOT READ.
And you know what? I’m also sick to death of 6 volt DC Square lantern batteries with the springs on top! It’s WAAAAY past time we did something about it.
It’s those egotistical alpha-males. They’re the ones to blame! Their darn manual transmissions and lantern batteries!!
You’re G-D right. And then we can go after the 9 volts.
Wait those still exist?
Driving a car with a stick is a melding of human and machine like no other, when you row through the gears just right, double clutch on the button, hear and feel the engine revs, it all puts a grin on your face like no other.
My wife loves driving manual transmission vehicles and would be pissed if I showed her the article. I’ll spare her that frustration.
Hello, I am an American.
I do not want to use both hands to drive, because then I would not be able to use my phone, or eat a cheeseburger, which are normal things I like to do while driving, and totally safe. I need to do this because I spend four hours a day driving because I hate the idea of public transportation, where I would be able to use my phone or perhaps even eat a cheeseburger without accidentally killing someone with my personal monster truck.
I will, of course, remind you that cars are Freedom and therefore Jesus and also maybe in the Constitution, next to guns. This is why everyone in my America needs to live at least thirty minutes of driving away from shops, services, and employment. Walking is probably communism. Walking outside is definitely communism.
Of course, I hate driving, which is why I eat cheeseburgers on my phone while driving. A manual transmission needs constant attention, like a friendly cat, or a child, so I hate it, because it means I have to drive my car when I’m driving.
Some day, I hope technology will mean that I will never need to drive again. Except not like a train or a bus or living closer to services, or especially, god forbid, a bicycle.
Now if you excuse me, I have to drive thirty minutes to the gym so I can eat more cheeseburgers while driving.
This is my first post ever on this site. I wanted to thank you sir for the laughter. I think your post would have been even more impactful, had the article author been American, while he is German instead – still this is for CNN, so I guess this indirectly qualifies.
Great job no matter what. By the way I assume you are not American; otherwise congratulations for your way-above-average self-deprecation skills.
The esteemed Mr. Hockenos is an American living and working abroad. I’m also an American, however I haven’t the privilege of such esteemed employment. I was just hoping that if I could write something just as stupid on the internet, CNN would pay me as well. Alas, it does not appear to have worked.
Just FYI, these things are not uniquely American. I appreciate the condemnation of the things you list, and I agree that they are seen all too often, but I get tired of the trope that it’s just Americans.
I shudder like a motor attached to a poorly released clutch when I remember that crappy articles like that CNN one are being fed into AI algorithms as “writing examples”.
That’s OK. We just need to point the AI scrapers to the Autopian and the comments sections. 🙂
Thank you for this!!! I read this article yesterday and was just floored by the ignorance and the sheer level of douche baggery in it. I love manuals, but have nothing against those who want autos. Of my 3 cars, only one is manual, and it’s the one that’s broken, so it’s not something I have enjoyed much lately, but man I love it when I can. Regardless though, I also found his constant references to men driving manuals more, and the alpha male aspect just annoying as hell and yes, obviously and unnecessarily sexist. Dude needs to never write an op ed again because while it is impossible for one’s opinion to be wrong, his opinions are very wrong and should not be shared outside of whatever anti manual support group he frequents.
Initially, I thought that Paul Hockenos was German because Berlin was mentioned. I was going to apologize to the Autopians on behalf of my people. Seems like that guy is full of shit. But checking Wikipedia, I realize he’s from the United States. No need for me to apologize then, phew! BTW, who of you has fiddled with his Wiki entry? At the moment, it reads that he’s a ‘beta male’.
Another, very simple reason why people (outside the U.S.) drive stick: The base model of smaller cars often comes with a stick. Automatic is not available for the base model, or costs more. So people just drive manuals and don’t make a fuss about it.
That’s amazing. I love that someone is fighting back!
The opening paragraph is even better than just the beta male reference… (don’t know how to post a screen cap though).
Oh wow. I hadn’t actually gone and read it until now. That’s awesome.
Before it gets changed:
“Paul Hockenos (born 1963) is a beta male and political analyst who has been working in Germany and across Central and Eastern Europe since 1989.[1] His work has appeared in Newsweek, among other periodicals.[2] He has authored several books on European politics and perpetrated unfounded claims based on his opinions and experiences.[2][3] His work is generally not regarded to be taken seriously.”
It’s still up there! XD
What we need is for Adrian to write about this.
Who misses a shift on a manual made in the past 30 years anyway?
Mother Dearest had to be dragged kicking and screaming from a manual transmission car when her arthritis got too bad.
She was well into her seventies.
So very glad I ran across this article. I saw that CNN op-ed headline, and though I wanted to click on it to possibly rail him in the comments, I didn’t want to dignify the trash with my click.
Thank you for highlighting the shite that weak-kneed snowflake was whining about. And thank you for the laughs I got from reading your mocking his Freud comment.
There’s a lot of shite going on in the world right now, but nothing has made me want to get my pitchfork out like what this ‘journalist’ wrote.
I bet he shamefully drinks Rose when alone in his condo too.
I just hope that Jason’s blood pressure doesn’t get too elevated because of this guy’s BS.
I drove manuals for about 25 years. Two of the cars were simple objects of transportation, ’67 VW Bug and an ’81 Corolla. For 17 years, I drove a manual ’85 MR2 in traffic and for fun. I get it and think people who want to have a manual to enjoy should have one. Now I have a ’04 TL (auto) and I’m OK with that at this point in my life.
Over the years, I developed a taste for wine. I hope Jason doesn’t revoke my Autopian membership. My pleasure is in sharing that pleasure with others. If they don’t care, that’s fine. I was lucky to be able to taste some extraordinary wines before (back in the ’80s) they became expensive. Now I find pleasure in seeking out great deals at modest prices.
With all the things in this world that are responsible for my existential dread, I’m not getting too worked up about some guy’s inability to understand the pleasure of working with a machine in motion.
This is the first time I’ve seen the zero (0) assigned to the neutral (N).
Anyway, one of my closest friends in Colorado is girl of French Swiss extraction. She insisted on buying cars with manual gearbox. None of her friends at the university could try to “borrow” her car as they didn’t know how to shift. That worked out in her favour.
Y’all are falling right into the hands of an obvious troll. This CNN article’s sole intent is to get your clicks and boost their ad revenue. It is designed to annoy you into to doing that by being so blatantly wrong that it pisses you off and you just have to give it a read so you can argue your point about how stupid it is.
There are few things more satisfying for me than driving a car with a manual transmission and playing Bach on an organ. I can’t think of very many other activities that require simultaneous engagement of all limbs, fingers, and critical thought. Flying a small airplane is another. This man’s op-ed is frightening because he seems to suggest that we should be happy to hand these sorts of complex skills to machines. Frankly I think this philosophy is more sinister and pernicious than simple clickbait. My most stable relationship has been with a tired and sooty W123 Mercedes 240D with a 4-speed and Dr. Freud can suck it.
Obviously those organ pipes are just GIANT penis substitutes!!
I think he’s not anti-stickshift, he’s just anti-fun.
Yeah, it might not be as efficient, and that’s fine with me. I’m all-in on electric cars. I’ve bought my last ICE vehicle. But I will be keeping my 2012 JK 6-speed with 135K miles on the side as long as I can keep maintaining/fixing it. And my dad has been given standing orders that if he decides to sell his rust-free 1987 AMC Wrangler 5-speed (with an upgraded AX-15) that he bought new when I was in high school, he’s to call me first.
So yeah… Give me efficiency, but I still want to ENJOY rowing through the gears when I want to. Why does this have to be a “thing?” I mean, come on.
Yeah his article is nonsense. I stopped reading halfway down.
I saw that article too. That was absolutely the biggest STEAMING pile of BS I’ve ever heard! In the 28 plus years that I’ve been driving, I’ve only had 2 automatic transmission vehicles (1988 Ford Tempo sedan and a 2004 Hyundai Santa Fe),neither of which were particularly thrilling. My current rides,both of which are manual give me hours of joy on the highway,plus heaven forbid if there’s a starter issue I can pop the clutch to get them going (so far that hasn’t happened yet). Whoever wrote that dumpster fire garbage piece should just turn in their license and just take the bus or Uber!!
Just flip the bozo but on the guy. Another of the inumerable idiots opinionating on the Internet.
I’ve owned cars with manuals, conventional automatics, CVTs, and now EVs.
To be completely honest, I’d rather have a good CVT than a bad manual. I have yet to find a truly great CVT, but I’ve driven some truly awful manuals. I also prefer automatics for off-roading. If I’m trying to place a tire in a certain spot for traction, left foot braking is far more precise than trying to slip the clutch, not to mention wear and tear.
Also, multi-speed transmissions DO exist for EVs: the Taycan rear motor has a two-speed transmission, and early Tesla Roadsters had a two-speed gearbox, though it was quickly dropped due to reliability issues. Electric motors can still benefit from a transmission as evidenced by the ubiquity of gearmotors and servos in all manner of applications.
Toyota is talking about full manual transmissions in future EVs.
In the end, I’m just sick of people whining their single-minded views one way or the other as there far too many variables involved. For myself, I love a Miata stick shift for weekend driving out on the country roads near me, but it’s terrible for stop and go traffic. I like my automatic Jeep for off-road driving, and I like my EV for commuting.
Pick the right tool for the job, but people have their own preferences one way or the other.
“Bad manuals” are why I’m keeping my 2012 JK manual. I haven’t driven a JL, but the stories told by those who have lead me to believe that the JK is – so far – the end of the decent manuals on Jeeps.
I’ve gotten used to the CVT on our Subaru. It’s not terrible, certainly not as bad as the early Nissan CVT’s I drove.
My dream is the original Magneto. When I heard Jeep made a prototype 2-door EV with a manual transmission? I would have sold a kidney for one, no matter how potentially useless an EV with a transmission might be.
I had a JK and while that agricultural transmission is certainly romantic and I sometimes miss the numbness in my palm, the JL manual is infinitely better to drive, though it took about a day to get used to first. The gearing leaves something to be desired but I don’t want to make the mileage even worse, and that’s not the shifters fault. I’ve heard the reliability stories but so far so good.
I read this earlier today and it rustled my jimmies real good. I hate that he makes driving a manual some macho alpha male shit. Does he not know about the Miata? Why rip on manuals when brodozers exists? What did manuals ever do to him? I won’t be surprised to see an EV article from him soon shitting on ICE and car culture in general.
why be mad at him for being mad at something you like, by being mad about something that other people like?
One rare occasional moment in my stick shift driving (currently a Honda Fit, but my past is littered with manuals) is the blown shift which TRANSPORTS me to my 10 year old brain where I yell “HE BLEW THE SHIFT” in full Hot Wheels commercial announcer voice. Good times!
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx-YnS0fKj4myOuVWX_kI7JK_qf3L6QEod?si=LLczgY5gL4bF1DWB
Just once I’d like to see an entire article on an automotive enthusiast website accepting that even people who don’t like manuals for whatever reason can be a part of the enthusiast community instead of getting all squabbleflustered whenever someone on a more “mainstream” media outlet says they don’t like driving stick followed by a deafening echo chamber of a comments section saying anyone with an automatic, CVT or even DCT in their vehicle is a lazy, uncoordinated NPC who can’t say they’re actually driving it.
You say, “total control, connected to the car,” etc. I say upshifting is just acceleration with extra steps and downshifting is just deceleration/braking with extra steps. And yet, I’ve loved cars since I knew about their existence and for as much as I accept the inevitability of EVs taking over and think the world will be better off for it, I will miss the sound of a well-tuned ICE.
Does this make me a poseur?
I am sorry but you can’t be a true enthusiast and not like manuals or at least appreciate why people would like them. You are literally the one in control of changing gears and nothing is more personal.
Come on now. People like different aspects of driving. Some find clutchwork and self-shifting a bit of a pain. That doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy driving.
If they find it a pain then they aren’t a real enthusiast because there is a huge amount of cars that are known as drivers cars that are only manuals. You can’t gate yourself off from a bunch of legendary cars because you find shifting a pain.
What is a ‘real’ enthusiast? Why do you keep such a narrow definition that a car enthusiast has to like certain aspects or certain cars to qualify?
Does that mean a one-legged person cannot be an enthusiast?
Why the gatekeeping? What’s it to you whether someone is an “enthusiast”? There’s no admission test.
Nah, it’s all good. I have had manuals and automatics and they all have different aspects which make them fun or useful. If you don’t like shifting, it doesn’t make you any less of an Autopian than me for not liking wrenching.
And coming up next (probably) from Mr. Hockenos, a detailed description on the only correct way to mastubate…
While driving
Did you guys know that some people still read paper books?
Clearly paper is anachronistic. It is bad for the environment and inefficient. A modern e-reader or even a phone can store far more books, and is far more mobile. Anyone who enjoys paper books is clearly an egotistical fool, living in the past, and we should all mock them.
The author definitely has some other deep-seated mental health issues going on.
1) Freud references and concern about a “phallic” shifter.
2) Irrational concern or dislike for some type of mythical “alpha-male”, and his insistence that his hated demographic consist only of these males.
3) Taking some strange pleasure in the “bruised egos” of manual transmission drivers.
He may say he knows how to drive one, but he clearly never got to be any good at it, hence his apoplexy around a missed downshift.
I suspect it’s all a cover to divert attention away from him not knowing how to drive a manual car properly.