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
Glad you wrote this, I saw the headline to the CNN article yesterday and refused to click on it as I don’t want to support it in any way.
I was so annoyed at this article, misogynistic, uninformed. His blind worship of EVs saving the world. That article read like some unhinged Reddit post.
It’s even worse if you have a publisher:
https://xkcd.com/2051/
Thank you for saying something about it. I saw that article, read a paragraph, and saw clearly that he didnt get the point of enjoying the experience. Currently saving money for the Integra S. What appears to be a car build for someone who enjoys driving. Fastest – no. Most Efficient – no, best cornering – no. Built for the enjoyment of the human/machine experience – YES! Sign me up every time.
Its pretty rare i read an article that actually truly aggravates me. Most writers are just doing thier job, or at the very worst, putting out pieces that their bosses need them to put out, for better or worse.
This though? Its a hit piece against a transmission. With all the problems and struggles going on in the world, all the posible things to inform the public on, why anyone would choose to so aggressively (and haphazardly) attack a preference is beyond me.
opinions are like a-holes…
*sniff, sniff* Do you smell that?
I read that article yesterday, I almost made an account to make a reply. Then I read the comments and felt many people already skewered the guy and I didn’t need to add my 2 cents.
I know it’s difficult, but you did the right thing. The best way to “get him” is to just ignore the article and not give him the page engagement.
Yeah, what an absolute moron- he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about…and for what? What is the purpose? Nobody gets anything out of his article besides wasted time and a little dumber…damn CNN
My view on the article is pretty much what Torch says here, I’m just not as articulate. Thanks for spelling it out for me.
Mrbrown89 commented that their husband learned to drive stick and is a better driver for it. When my kids were learning to drive I taught them in a stick. If their hands and minds are involved in shifting, then they are not playing with the phone while behind the wheel. If there is any argument at all for keeping a manual transmission vehicle, I say it’s that it’s harder to be a distracted driver if both hands are full of car.
Agree! Part of the reason I went back to a manual (after many years) is that I felt like I wasn’t paying attention to driving AT ALL. You’re on a call, your kids are in the car, your car will let you know if you’re drifting or getting too close to the car in front of you, etc. I found myself become a terribly distracted driver.
Yep! That’s a large part of the reason I got my son an older manual car that we could work on together. Being fully engaged in the driving experience keeps you off the stupid phone. He still drives that car, nine years and over 100,000 miles later.
I’ve commented here before that I firmly believe I am a better all around driver when driving manual cars. Like you said, when you are busy with the car, you can’t be distracted by the other stuff.
I know people like this. He probably thinks road trips are stupid because flying is so much faster. He probably never does anything around the house or builds anything himself. He doesn’t understand the joy of doing for the sake of doing. I can’t wait for his upcoming article on how much fly fishing sucks. Haha
Yeah, it completely misses the whole point of a road trip- the journey/memories. It can be an absolute blast compared to being on an airplane and missing all the sightseeing, etc. I’ve flown plenty of times and now it’s the same thing every time (obviously) compared to a road trip which can be completely unique every time- different roads, stops, cars, people w/ you, etc etc etc
They sell fish AT THE STORE. Anyone holding a fishing pole is just pretending its their dick.
/s
Hahahahaha
My husband never learned how to drive stick. After I bought the Honda Insight, then the VW Super Beetle, he asked me what was so interesting about it? I told him I was going to teach him to find out the fun of driving manual, he learned in the Beetle and perfected his technique on the Insight. He loved driving them, he bough himself a Ford Ranger Base as hell with manual transmission. Going to the store? Driving the ranger, Home Depot run? Ranger.
He is a much better driver now, he is more aware of what is he doing.
I love it for kids learning to drive, too. The more appendages occupied, the better! I also noticed a difference in my level of awareness after taking a motorcycle education course. Riding a bike makes you a much better driver as well.
Similar experience with my husband. I taught him to drive a manual, and he became a much, much better driver.
This. This is one of many reasons I love this site. This is prime Torch. The sexist comments are BS. My wife likes to drive manual and my 19 year old daughter LOVES her manual transmission car. Our society (in the US anyway), loves to market and pigeonhole based on gender and unfortunately, that crap seeps into common collective thought. Driving is driving. Some people like it, some don’t, and some are indifferent to it. I don’t see a reason to bring gender in to this discussion.
Also want to point out that Hockenos probably never saw the wry grin on Sabine Schmitz’s face and the gleam in her eye when she was taking on a driving challenge and rowing through the gears.
Love you Torch! You took the words right out of my mouth, ran them through your Torchinsky modified TRS-80, and turned it into an actual piece of well articulated journalism.
Oh, and it doesn’t seem like anyone has mentioned this already, but Hockenos’ brother was allegedly killed by a hapless Daewoo Lanos driver who had accidently popped the clutch at the wrong moment. No wonder he has beef.
Thank you Torch for taking all of the words and thoughts that were floating around in my head after reading that article and coagulating them into such a succinct answer to not only this guy, but to so many people out there like him.
I’ve boiled down my “why manual?” argument down to “because it’s fun” and really little more needs said. This guy is a great example of not understanding or believing that to a somewhat sad degree.
The environmental retort to that argument does complicate things though.
For example I might ask a guy “why coal roll?” and he may be sincere when he says “because it’s fun.” To people who are passionate about fighting climate change, manual enthusiasts and coal rollers probably look pretty similar. I think that’s where a lot of this guys animosity comes from.
I expect new manual vehicles will continue as long as ICE products are profitable and legal for OEMs to produce. That said, this guy will probably be alive to see the day when the last new manual is sold. He will probably even be there when the last gas stations as we know them close up, certainly in Europe. I do expect, however, that special rules and exemptions will be established to allow people to enjoy driving their ICE vehicles around for fun, most of which I expect will be manual – much to his chagrin! These cars are a significant piece of our cultural heritage and will not be going into any dust bin of history.
The comparison between someone who prefers to drive a manual and someone who enjoys rolling coal isn’t fair. They are on different planes of existence.
New vehicles with manual transmissions might get 1-2 mpg less than automatics. But that has more to do with how the EPA rates vehicles than real world driving. Someone can be a lead foot in an auto and get way worse mileage than someone without a lead foot in a manual.
Rolling coal is a different story. While it is bad for the environment, the real purpose (and effect) is to piss people off. We’ll all seen videos of rolling coal all over a bicyclists or other vehicles.
I think even most activists would not equate the two.
Generally, I liked your comment and felt it was appropriate and reasonable. ????
Oh I’m with you. Coal rolling is friggin bullshit and I honestly think real-world efficiency of manuals vs. automatics is negligible. I’m willing to bet that driving habits tend to give manuals an efficiency edge for most people. I guess a better point to make would be that passionate environmentalists see all ICE as about equally bad, with manuals being a “slightly worse evil” as this guy said in his article, feeding into that main source of rage.
Somebody needs too slap that idiot, prefferably someone like Abby from grand tour, or Shirley Muldowny, or our own beloved Mercedes for being so incredibly sexist in that paper sack of diarrhea on CNN.
Also is CNN even still considered a news agency or just an endless string of fuckups just like every other “news” agency.
Glad to see the CNN op-ed get blasted here. It was just shockingly tasteless, bad “journalism” to my tastes when I (unfortunately) clicked on it and then couldn’t look away, in horrible-train-wreck fashion.
The author completely lost me early on with his blatant sexist take on manuals, and my revulsion was clearly vindicated in the article’s comments section as various women spoke up to point out that they, too prefer manual transmissions. It’s not some knuckle-dragging machismo thing. Manuals are for people like to be engaged with driving. And for people who like the simplicity and reliability of it.
Also, that poor, misguided idiot clearly knows nothing about the joy and mystery of perfectly floating gears, either. With skill, the biggest, burliest “alpha male”-looking trucker or sweet, elderly grandma, can flick through gears without touching the clutch and needing only two fingers on the shifter. Or, for even better effect, shifter between thumb and forefinger, pinky properly extended.
Manuals are simple, engaging, and fun for people who like driving. The guy just doesn’t get it.
Some of the most fun I’ve had was in cars with mechanical problems. Double-clutching to coax the bad 2nd-gear synchro into place was just as rewarding as it was frustrating, and so was the time I had a big bubble in the clutch line and had to heel-toe to keep engine load high enough to stay running at the stop sign (if I shifted to neutral at a stop I wouldn’t be able to leave 1st, the original shift was done by pushing the car up to idle speed and floating 1st in, afterward the clutch could slip just enough to not stall). Making it to the garage where I could bleed it felt like a major achievement back then.
Meh. I get where he’s coming from. Growing up, there definitely was a certain machismo about driving a stick shift. Yeah, the dick joke is unimaginatively tired and lame.
While I recognize that men are not the only people who prefer rowing their own, I don’t need a statistician to know they(men) remain the majority. Not sure why you reacted to something so obvious. Also, I don’t see where he said driving a stick was only a man’s thing, just mostly a mans thing-which again, is abundantly obvious to anyone who’s ever walked through a car show.
He makes enough valid points that- if anything, you guys are the ones who can stand to chill out. Let ‘im hate. Go take a drive while you still can and forget about him.
You can tell this guy drives the most boring car on Earth in the most boring way possible. Probably a RAV4, a Lexus ES or RX, something like that, and he’s probably always holding up traffic so he feels safe driving 15 under the speed limit, waving his fist at passing 911’s with their exhausts popping as they upshift while they pass this road going nuisance. No offense to owners of Lexuses or Rav4s, they’re just fine.
My guess is a Tesla Model 3, based on how he calls the EV the savior of the world or something…
I love that I see more comments, this quickly to this Autoptian article than any other in a long time.
Long live the manuals.
May be total garbage but it’s fantastic click bait for CNN. What surprises me is that you fell for it Jason.
Don’t hold back, Torch. Tell us what you really think.
“maybe consider not writing a time-wasting article about it for CNN?”
But then he wouldn’t get paid!
This article reminds me of the at-home cooks that make hideous slop casseroles in disposable baking trays on social media. Rage-bait that seems to be aimed at pissing off literally anyone who watches.
Unfortunately, it appears we’ve all fallen into CNN’s trap here (each year CNN appears to be coming closer and closer to the Fox News but left formula) but it’s good to acknowledge that what they’re trotting out is ignorant at best, and intentional rage-bait at worst.
Some people just like to piss in other people’s Cheerios.
This guy is totally somebody who sees you coming to pass on the left and pulls out in front of you going 10 under.
Yeah, late 40-something year old, overweight, male with social anxiety and depression issues here who drives a 5-speed Miata NB. Yeah, I’m the Alpha Male.
Nah. According to morons like this, you WANT to be the Alpha Male and therefore you drive a
hairdresser’s carMANUAL TRANSMISSION PENIS EXTENDER.As an almost-40 female who drives a manual transmission, I obviously have some weird, Freudian penis envy going on here.