Comment by kazinator

Manual transmissions have certain advantages, particularly in their home next to an ICE. They never 'hunt' for gears; if you want that, you have to hunt. They can be push started if the battery is dead.

Manuals are really good in bumper-to-bumper traffic: often the second gear has an incredible range from slow crawling to 40 km/h. You keep the clutch completely engaged and just work the gas pedal. (The odd time when things look like they are coming to a complete stop, you hit the clutch to keep the engine from stalling. But if the traffic moves again while you are still rolling, then you just re-engage in second gear.

You can do a similar thing in automatics with their 1 or 2 gears, but it doesn't work quite as nicely as that second gear in a typical manual.

Manual transmissions are tougher against heavy loads (than torque converter automatics). If you have to tow a heavily loaded trailer, manual is better. The clutch is fully engaged and so very little energy is lost in the transmissions. Automatic transmissions can heat up under load and can overheat.

A lot of this is not relevant when we are talking electric vehicles, of course.

But in an ICE car, there are good reasons to prefer a manual transmission, even if you're not a sporty driving enthusiast.