MattMan3104

I'm curious why Audi of America would offer the A5 coupe with a manual transmission but not offer one in the sportback. Except for a longer frame and two extra doors, the cars are mechanically the same. I assume that it would not cost any extra to import the sportback with a manual transmission since they are already bringing the same power train into the county in the A5 coupe. Any guesses why the difference?

I got really excited when I saw the coupe could be had with a manual transmission expecting the sportback to have the same options.

blassus

I'm with you. The A5 Sportback was the car I really wanted, but when I found out that a manual would not be offered and got over my disappointment, I went with the A4 sedan with the 6 speed. A manual transmission is a must for me and my choices are vanishing quickly.

superswiss

My guess is they don't see a market for it. It's the same thing at BMW with the Gran Coupes. The low takers for manual transmissions in general is probably close to zero in the Sportback niche segment.

sailor99

I agree. I had been an Audi guy for 16 years. I was very disappointed that I couldn't get a manual transmission in the model that I wanted. Eventually I sold my S3 and bought a Porsche Cayman.

Turguin

Count me as another disappointed that there's no manual in the Sportback.

heymoe

Ditto.. If I could get the 6 speed in the A5 SB, the decision as to what my next car would be would be done and done but now I'm still floating around and considering other options still.

TheWalrus

The issue is that automakers must crash test each combination of car, transmission, and drivetrain. That is an expensive process. So bringing a manual transmission doubles the number of crash tests for that model. If they do not think they will sell very many of them, it just isn't worth it.

Jamblastx

To me it's a self fulfilling prophecy...yes the number of people who would want a manual is probably decreasing but not nearly at the rate at what the manufacturers are telling us. A lot of people simply no longer have the choice of a manual in a car that they would want or if it does exist, it's either available for the base version of the car and/or it's close to impossible to find one. So a potential manual buyer may end up buying the automatic version of the car to which the manufacturers trumpet 'See...no one wants a manual!'

superswiss

Not really. There's ample historical data to show the trend. The writing has been on the walls for a long time. Quattro Gmbh, now Audi Sport, revealed some telling cases in an interview a few years ago. The previous gen TT RS was initially only available with a MT. The moment they introduced the S-tronic, MT sales dropped pretty much overnight to below 5% and that's despite only offering the MT in North America. Same thing happened with the R8 when they finally replaced that awful R-tronic with the S-tronic. Most performance buyers don't see the point of taking away from that performance with an inferior transmission, and many also drive these cars in the daily grind where the convenience of a fully automatic mode is hard to beat.

However, there are other drivers behind eliminating the MT. One such driver are the ever more stringent fuel economy standards, which can only be reached by downspeeding engines to keep them out of boost. An automatic transmission can be mapped to keep the average revs low to improve fuel economy and meet CO2 emissions standards adopted by the Kyoto protocol. They are also fast enough to quickly downshift to a lower gear when peak power is suddenly requested via throttle input, and then quickly upshift to a higher gear again when the power is no longer needed. The more powerful the engines, the more fuel they consume, so that's why you still see MT in the base engine models, but the higher up you go it's semi-automatic or automatic only.

Secondly, all the driver assistance features that manufacturers put in the car nowadays is another big driver. Things like traffic jam assist etc. just don't work unless the computer can control the transmission. And it's not just the self-driving features, but also the predictive efficiency features that use map data to recognize the topology ahead and decouple the transmission to free wheel if you are driving on a slight decline for example.

Even BMW, who traditional kept catering to the ever shrinking MT market is admitting defeat and already announced the end of the manual transmission across their lineup. The M models are gonna be first. Unfortunately, the dual clutch transmissions seem to be going away, too in these segments as the torque converter transmissions are supposedly catching up. I'm not quite buying that one yet, but it is what it is.

In my own case, after owning MT cars for most of the last two decades and having owned an RS5 for 4 years now, I don't see a point or desire to ever go back to an MT. Other than nostalgia, there are no benefits, unless it's a weekend toy specifically for pleasure only, but that's not the market for an S5 Sportback. Get a Miata or something for that.

JohnEnglish

Pretty much, when automakers release their sales numbers, or just flipping through their annual reports, manual transmissions generally make up less than 10% of sales.