Paltry demand forces Hyundai Venue to drop manual transmission in this market

The popularity of automatic transmission unit has long been stamped and has now been underlined with Hyundai dropping the manual transmission option in the Venue sold in the United States. The Venue has found a reasonable degree of success in the market here but its manual transmission option was struggling to keep pace with the auto unit counterpart.

A company official was quoted as saying by Car and Driver recently that Hyundai won't offer the manual transmission in Venue 2021. The same official further attributed the decision to a low demand. In a market where cars such as Venue have their best bet by highlighting the high level of convenience on offer, the auto transmission unit fits right in while the manual version is like an antonym of the same highlight.

While the six-speed manual option was only available in the Venue in the base SE variant in the US, even that is all set to go.

The move is hardly surprising because the US market sees an overwhelming majority of cars with auto transmission being sold. In fact, more electric cars were sold here in 2019 than cars with combustible engine and manual transmission.

The tale is not just restricted to the US market as many other countries are also seeing an uptick in auto transmission units. In India too, the manual transmission option is on the decline and is increasingly being replaced by the convenience of clutch-free, gear-less cars which claim to offer the same level of refinement and mileage. Companies such as Hyundai and Kia have now also begun offering clutch-less technology which retains the gearbox but does away with the clutch pedal