2019 Chevy Cruze Could Lose Its Manual Transmission

Khodrocar - It looks like another car will be ditching the old-school manual transmission. The Truth About Cars got ahold of General Motors VIN decoder documents recently released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and after a bit of digging it seems the option is no longer on the table for the 2019 Chevrolet Cruze. Not that people were lining up to straighten corners in a stick-shift Cruze (or any Cruze for that matter) but still, it’s another decent small car that will no longer allow drivers to change cogs at will.

At least, that’s the way it seems. There’s been no official word from General Motors on the matter, but in addition to finding no manual option, the VIN decoder does seem to indicate the Cruze will get a new CVT automatic. That makes a certain kind-of sense – if the current car offers a lower-cost manual with an automatic option, the new car might feature a base automatic (in this case, a six-speed) with the gearless CVT being the up-spec choice.

Either way, it becomes one less car with a direct connection between the driver and the transmission and that seriously upsets some people. We’ll not open up a big debate on the merits of automatic-versus-manual – the truth is they both have advantages and disadvantages. We will point out, however, that modern automatics have come a long way in closing the performance gap to a manual, so much so that most auto boxes these days provide better acceleration compared to manuals. Meanwhile, a modern manual is still pretty much the same kind of transmission used 50 years ago.

That shouldn’t suggest for one tiny minute that we don’t like shifting gears ourselves. The experience of driving and being a functional, mechanical part of the vehicle’s operation can easily transcend pure performance. That holds true whether the car in question is a snazzy new Chevrolet Camaro, or a modest Chevy Cruze.