While Subaru offers manual transmissions on a lot of their vehicles, that could soon change as the company focuses on safety.
Nothing has been officially announced, but Auto Express says the company’s desire to build the safest cars in the world could eventually doom the manual gearbox. The company’s well-received EyeSight system provides an assortment of driver assistance features such as adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist and pre-collision braking, yet it’s incompatible with manual transmissions.
If Subaru really want to produce safer cars, they might decide to drop manuals all together. As Subaru UK managing director Chris Graham explained, “There are certainly no rumors we’ve heard that manual will continue or Eyesight will be [offered] with [a] manual.” He went on to say “My gut tells me it will be EyeSight with Lineartronic ongoing and long term.”
Graham added that he doesn’t think Subaru can continue to offer a manual transmission if the company is serious about its quest to build the safest vehicles in the world. As he stated, offering a vehicle with a manual transmission and no EyeSight would just “ruin” the safety message.
We wouldn’t sound the alarm bells just yet, but it seems like the manual transmission will be facing increased pressure as driver assistance systems and semi-autonomous technology become more important.
