Mercedes to Retire Manual Gearbox

 It's official. The manual transmission is about to disappear at Mercedes-Benz.

In news that is unlikely to cause a stir among Australian buyers, Mercedes-Benz head of research and development, Markus Schaefer, confirmed that the company "will phase out manual transmissions".

The removal of the manual transmission from the product line goes hand in hand with Mercedes-Benz's commitment to electrify its vehicle lineup.

Mercedes to Retire Manual Gearbox

At the forefront of the electrification announcement comes confirmation that the EQ sub-brand will launch six new models. Further, however, this means that current combustion models will expand their introduction of plug-in hybrid, closed-loop hybrid and mild hybrid electric assistance.

While manuals and hybrids aren't impossible to integrate, add Mercedes' future focus on self-driving vehicles and it's not hard to see why the manual is on time borrowed.

In an effort to reduce the company's overhead costs, Mercedes-Benz will consolidate its platform lineup and reduce its combustion engine lineup. These changes will be explained in more detail in the future.

The full scope of Schaefer's comments is focused on reducing product complexity as a means of cutting costs, as the UK publication Autocar reports.

“Complexity adds costs. We will reduce future products, drastically reduce platforms, combustion engines will be drastically reduced, and we will eliminate manual transmission. "Schaefer said.

"We are moving towards a more modular strategy and we will drastically reduce the number of options."

In its current lineup, Mercedes-Benz Cars still offers a six-speed manual transmission in the base variants of the C-Class, B-Class, A-Class and CLA in international markets, but has not extended the option to cars. such as GLA. . and GLB SUV.

Larger models have only been automatic for a while, and the E-Class was the last to drop its manual option overseas in 2018.

Locally, the entire Mercedes-Benz passenger lineup is reserved for cars, with the latest generation SLK / SLC roadster being the last to offer the option.

While the manuals have survived on brands like Porsche and BMW for enthusiast models, Mercedes-Benz has not followed suit and kept its high-performance AMG lineup for cars only.

The impact on commercial vehicles is, for the moment, less clear.

While the vans division shares key components such as engines and transmissions with the passenger car lineup, the popularity of manual vans in the European market could lead to a temporary suspension of performance.

Locally, a spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicles suggested that the automation acceptance rate was around 90%. The current lineup of utility vehicles, Vito, Sprinter and X-Class, offer a choice of manual or automatic transmission, depending on specification.