The Joy of Driving: A Discussion on Manual Transmissions

My personal favorite type of transmission is the 86, also known as Subaru BRZ, which is a great example of a car that can make driving a manual transmission enjoyable. For Solera driver, I'm just throwing that out there, you know like manual transmissions, yeah then there's some other ones like Subaru Crosstrek, where you can manage transmission, come standard on the 2.0 i and the two-point i premium, but it's limited to only one trim.

Another interesting car is Hyundai Elantra, which has a manual transmission available on its base SE model, but not on any of the higher trims. This creates an interesting dynamic, where some cars can be driven with ease in both automatic and manual transmissions, while others have their options limited. The Honda Civic or Accord also follows this trend, offering manual transmissions as an option on certain trim levels.

However, there is one car that stands out from the rest: the Mazda 3 stick. This car is a fantastic example of how well-designed manual transmissions can make driving a joyous experience. The shifting mechanism and clutch are silky smooth, making it an ideal vehicle for those who enjoy driving with a manual transmission. Whether you opt for the hatch or the sedan version, both offer practicality and style.

I was surprised to learn that some cars, like the Mazda 3, can still be driven with ease, even though they're not traditional two-door sports cars. The Solero, which is often criticized for being unreliable but high maintenance, can also have a manual transmission available on certain models. Who knows how long this will remain the case, as technology continues to advance and more cars are designed with automatic transmissions in mind.

It's worth noting that there are still many car enthusiasts out there who appreciate the art of driving with a manual transmission. For one thing, it requires less maintenance than an automatic transmission, making it a more cost-effective option in the long run. Additionally, driving a stick can make you a better driver, as it forces you to focus on the road and anticipate what's ahead.

One story that illustrates this point is from a young girl who said she wanted to learn how to drive a manual transmission solely because of its supposed benefits for fuel economy. However, when asked about her motivation, she revealed that she simply wanted to learn how to drive something by hand. This highlights the fact that driving with a manual transmission has become less common in our society, where technology is increasingly taking over.

This decline in manual transmission use also leads to a lack of understanding and appreciation for the art of driving. As someone who learned to drive with a manual transmission, I can attest to its benefits and joys. For me, it's not just about shifting gears; it's about being connected to the road, anticipating what's ahead, and enjoying the experience.

In fact, some people might view driving a stick as an art form. Take Miranda Lambert's song "Automatic," which talks about how no one's doing anything by hand anymore. Another artist, who isn't country music fan but I do enjoy Jake Bugg, said that God knows that shifting gears ain't what it used to be.

A great example of this is my dad who learned to drive on the trees. He repeated that 55 just like a queen three on the tree and for me that's really old-school I think there is something to the art of driving with a manual transmission, making no we'll see so thank you for watching that's all we've got today see you next time

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis week we talk about our trip to the SAE government industry meeting and how we're hoping to common eyes confusing names for safety features we also touch on our first impressions of the Honda clarity plug-in Hybrid and take viewer questions next on talking car all right and welcome to the show I'm Jennifer stock burger I'm Jake Fisher and I'm like - all so this week we kind of have our own news Jake and I have just gotten back from the SAE government industry show which is kind of a one-stop shopping of society of automotive engineers who sponsor the the conference engineers from academia and manufacturers etc government National Highway Traffic Safety Administration EPA policy makers and industry so all the manufacturers are there it's held in conjunction with the Washington Auto Show so everybody's kind of in one place and and as we would expect Jake what were the big takeaways from the show well obviously we're still talking about timeless driving right I mean everyone's talking about autonomy they're talking about you know how did you implement it safely when is it going to happen just all of the pieces I mean we were talking a lot about trying to break apart autonomy and figure out like you know make it clear you know what's one of the building blocks what what is really true autonomy but I think one of the interesting things was so we had this roundtable right and and it was kind of like the the so I was moderating it there was like he was excellent he was excellent he was funny I wouldn't know I'm not part of it I think he's talking cars experience helped it was really good I think that helped but I mean it was like the world's longest talking cars that went on for which two hours and we were getting like questions stuff like that but one of the really interesting things that came out of because we were talking about not just like this March to autonomy but like do people care your people want this and what is that going to being said we've talked a bit about you know what is what's that going to mean is it going to be this this topic future or is it going to be great and what not but what was it the guy from Natta right yes this was the vice chairman of the national automotive automotive dealers association Wesley Lutz and he said right so and he said and we was questions about you know what is bringing people into the dealers and kind of unprompted he's like well there's two things they're bringing people and buying cars because we're like you know 18 million you know cars were bought last year's I mean we record really high levels of Cara purchasing and he's a books bringing coming in the dealers people are coming in because the increased fuel economy which we talked about but also the safety features they're seeing that as a big reason to come in and buy the stuff not so much you know autonomy and no car has autonomy and and you know they were talking about two different things like only 10% of the people really want a car that's autonomous or they feel safe about you know having a car that's on the road Turner's but really it's a safety features yep yeah and and with that we kind of took the opportunity with all these players in the room to kind of pitch an idea that we've been talking about and we want to share with you about would it be beneficial so so Jake said people are coming in for safety features and we're talking on automatic emergency braking and for I'm warning lying spot warning those kinds of things is that we hope yeah so they're saying I want safety I don't even think that consumers know exactly what they want they just know that the stuff is out there and they want to get it but what is it so this initiative we've been talking about is wouldn't it be great if we could call these things the same things at least at the building block level well it's funny because we actually you know we've been struggling without ourselves because the manufacturers call these things so many different names right so we actually as a group came up with you know we kind of voted on we made this big document voted on what's what's the best way to call blind spot warning or blind spot monitoring your blind spot assist all these different things and so we we worked on that because it's like I made this list or I have this list of all the different ways things are called right and I mean just like you guys could see this yeah you should see I mean I can barely read it but for like automatic emergency braking which is one of the things we really harp on right we think all cars should have standard it's confusing for the for the regular buyer to go in and know what they're getting right and so I mean like now or even in the recent past there's collision mitigation braking presents front presense city frontal collision warning low-speed autumn forward automatic emergency braking pre collision assist you know intelligent brake assist collision prevention assist Plus you know so how do you know what you're really good and what's interesting is that like so you look at and this is the first time something like this happened we saw this before with stability control so we were like huge proponents of stability patrol back in 1999 when we start started seeing it and we you know tried to work with the manufacturers like can you just call it the same thing and it we never got there you know it was dynamic enhanced traction plus and telev whatever you know right yeah I'd like to avoid that I mean essentially you came in 2012 it becomes standard and kind of went away but but good luck if you're looking for a used car and trying to figure out whether or not instability control or not right so so we kind of pitched this idea of let's try and common eyes and it was a great analogy in the meeting of generic drug names or the base drug names and the marketed names and we recognized we don't want to mess with their marketing but we said I'm your pro friends ibuprofen you can call it advil you can call it motrin and you can market it but when somebody clicks on it ultimately they say it's like oh I know what I'm getting so we thought we'd play a little game here about not only the packages I'm channeling my inner Letterman card about what some of the packages are called and what are the components in them and see if we can kind of figure it out ourselves so the first one I had here is driver confidence package when we say that and we may know some of these you know so what could it be what could a driver come in this package that that's easy at the linked kit for your truck right because I mean you could drive over stuff well I would have more confidence you know if I had you know the 33 inch wheels and tires and or it's just a sense of self like you're gonna you know it's it's a streaming tape that tells you you know you're you're good today you're special so driver confidence is a General Motors Chevrolet that's their safety package driver confidence package and it does include the things we talk about that we want forward collision alert not consistent necessarily low-speed front automatic braking and there's actually a driver confidence one and two so when you add the two you don't compete so it's a little bit along to those points right I mean all breaking it doesn't break automatically in all situations right it's only in emergency situations we call it a B which a lot of people call it but there's not even calling the components the ingredients the same thing right so the recipe the generic drug not the same all right city safety alarm system watch they see something that's important again automatic emergency braking and this is Volvo forward collision warning so they've got the ingredients right eyesight just I mean I have 2015 busy I'm good it's a windshield that actually is a lens that helps you see windshield washer cleaner yeah opportunity making fun of they all have their special little Suites of safety systems and not only is it confusing what the the suite right you know has in it but then it's even confusing when you look at what is comprised of and you're like I don't know what these things are I think eyesight would be a great name for the LED headlight package they're using high beam headlights and it doesn't have pre-collision braking again not automatic emergency braking which we would prefer lane departure warning lane keeping us and we like eyesight this is super Oseberg and i will really like somehow done a good job with that one because it seems like a lot of people actually know what eyesight is and then wanted you know yeah that's right accurate watch right not my cheap thing Jake's got the fancy one and there's Honda watch and after watching I also think this implies some sort of this vision benefit well Honda is more Honda's its Honda sensing right it's accurate watching Honda sensing right is it exactly sensing it's very sensitive that's important and finally one that we really like is safety sense that's Toyota really a broad name what is safety sense and it does include a number of things well there's a safety sense P I mean if you do the full thing your life's different versions that have different ingredients safety sense P includes some pedestrian detection that's my deciphering face it's the base version that does have a pre collision system which is their automatic emergency braking Auto high beams things like so yeah so but again like you need a pre-collision system right yeah that could be it could be about lightening up it could be you know allocating brakes ready to go on you know so there's so many things it could be right it's even confusing when you look at you know a car's motor only the window sticker and you're trying to figure out what okay what really is that that you know and I think that's what we're saying at that level so let me ask you this since I like I said I'm not in your secret society they need a like a society of automotive journalist or like si J or something right since you guys won't let me into your society so what was the takeaway you guys presented this and he said you know we think there should be common nomenclature right were the manufacturers you know they were represented by the automotive auto motive Alliance and the global automotive alliance and there wasn't a you guys are not this is never going to happen and I figure the balance is you may still see those words Acura watch Toyota Safety sense but there was kind of a sense that it might be okay to call the components the same thing I think it's in their best interest if it was all called the same thing right well so we said and you know so and we're not saying like I said we as a group came up with what we're gonna call these going forwards we're not gonna use the manufacturers names for the most part we're gonna you know call forward collision warning we're gonna call it FCW or forward collision warning automatic emergency braking blind spot warning not Blind Spot Assist or anything like that so we just came up with what we thought was the most descriptive right but I think it would be in their best interest if they came up with kind of like electronic stability control everyone knows what or even ABS that's something that everyone knows right what anti-lock brakes it seemed to get caught in it anti-lock brakes weren't allowed if if they did that I think it would be better for them because then people would know okay they don't know what Acura watches but in when they look on the window sticker and see what it is and it says for a collision warning automatic okay I know exactly what that so we actually did this so we did we actually created a list of kind of our names lack of anyone else having them and definitions so people could check those out so maybe a couple asks of our viewers one take a look at those definitions see if you think the names make sense look at the show notes below there's a link to our definition see if they make sense the other thing is do US consumers think that having those base definitions regardless of what the packages are called that we throw on the floor does that help you as a shopper leave a comment or better yet we've been asking for video send us a 30 second video consumerreports.org slash talking cars so we hope this gets some momentum so next up new at the track we have the Honda clarity it's really Justin I don't think I've even been in it I haven't even been in it yet so new Honda we did have some experience with the clarity fuel cell version that that we borrowed and had some driving in but impressions well yeah so the clarity is kind of unique because there's three versions of it you know there's a fuel cell which we had here for a little bit you know we rented from Honda and then there's a full electric and then there's the plug-in hybrid which is what we bought in which we think for sure most people are going to buy that car it's the you know the most normal in a sense yeah you know the fuel cell there's not an infrastructure yet to for that to work right and the the full electric version only has what 89 miles or 80 which is well not a range yeah these days you know it seems like you shouldn't come out with a full electric car unless you're gonna be you know close to 200 right so we bought the regular one the plug-in plug-in hybrid and you know it's it's not a bad driving car it's it's got okay power you know it's what's nice about these kind of you know hybrids plug-in hybrids like this is it has this 47 miles or so of Britain yes you know unless you floor it if you floor it it's still gonna become a regular hybrid and then the engine will kick on it becomes much louder but so it has a really nice take off from a stop because it's just full electric smooth power there's no you know if - what about a transmission doing anything weird or you know the interior is actually really nice it's got some really cool wood trim yeah the front and rear a pretty decent room the trunk is kind of not it's not as large as you'd expect you know there's some compromises there many hybrids yeah but I didn't think it was a bad driving vehicle you know it's not sporty vehicle by any stretch of the imagination so so I so I driven it and it was funny I dropped off my kids in the morning for ski club and I had to throw a snowboard in and all skis into it and then I picked them up with the our Hyundai Accent and the Hyundai Accent it was so much easier to carry the snowboard and skis and that and that larger far more expensive clarity and I think that's what bothers me battery boom that's a base I even the battery it's it's the cut so you look at the car and it's all kind of weird shaped it almost looks like a an overgrown Prius but here's the problem so like my wife has a 2006 Prius which is a hatchback in it so it's been a hatchback for many years and the new generations are - and it's very versatile right that's what looks different which I obviously clarity was trying to look different and it's got the funny thing it did that at a college I mean it's got a big ol rear end and it's covering up the rear wheel yeah somehow getting extra air out of it and whatnot but what drive me nuts is even though thing looks like a hatchback it's got this tiny little pass-through that allows you to put stuff up so I'm like shoving the skis in the snowboard and whatever and there's a pretty large car and then I go pick over the accent and a giant pass-through no problem she folds down I'm like really I mean I'm confused by the whole Honda you know a hybrid thing anyway I mean you've got the insight coming out you know we've got a new version of the insight we've got this clarity you've got an accord hybrid right I don't understand why all these different versions why not just come out with one good way I don't know like I feel like Honda's got burned because I mean they came out with you know you know core you know hybrids and they had Civic hybrids I mean pretty early on nobody really noticed and I think it was that you know Prius looked different and Prius was almost like a new brand for Toyota and it had the statement and almost like it it was almost like a you know they people were in California we were you know stars were driving around Priuses it wasn't happening Candace if entire bed so they're trying to get you know clarity which you know has this you know they they've made fuel cells are thinking fuel cells it looks different I don't know it's gonna work for them though because I mean they're not it's it's not a practical car it's not really design doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me they've hit that Goldilocks as you mentioned between the range anxiety of all electric and the infrastructure inability of the fuel cell I do think like you say that that back up in that peace of mind of having that gas that's just being a plug-in hybrid and there's other choices aren't that party it's 42 mpg combined EPA so it's not like it's you know 50 to like a right like a Prius you know or a hyundai ioniq or Camry Hybrid yeah right so it just doesn't seem like it makes a whole lot of sense I think little things too they carried the push-button shifter it's got the old touch screen system right touch screen in the unintuitive that's right so what's causing missions but it said we're gonna have it for a while we're gonna put it through all all of our tests and see what happens right so new here so the next thing is we do have some viewer questions that you guys have sent in and we'll talk about so first wanted to know according to CR what is the definition of reliability it seemed to be it seems to be a very vague term different testers could mean different things when it comes to reliability average reliability according to many think ratings seems to be similar to excellent reliability ten years ago I'm gonna throw this to Jake because he's the most sure yeah I mean the definition reliability for us at Consumer Reports is is more cut-and-dry than I think other sources and part of that reason is we're not talking about quality other people talk about quality we don't use that term because people's idea of quality could be different things reliability is stuff that broke right is it working or not working did it actually break and that's actually a very black-and-white type of it doesn't leave it to the consumer of you know do I like the way this thing works or not does it make a lot of noise or not there's a ride poorly or not we're not asking right they're not perceptions they're did you have to go get something fixed right now that said I mean every time we're talking about new cars we're comparing it to all the other new cars available so it does make it a little bit difficult to compare to you know ten years ago well I will tell you I mean spoiler alert older cars have more problems than your cars we'll just say that you know we're definitely looking at different ways you can actually compare newer cars to your new cars to use cars that's definitely something I think that's that's worthwhile but I will say that over the last five years I mean a lot of people always like well our new cars you know more reliable or all of them related no new cars do have a lot of problems there are different kinds of problems though we're seeing a lot of issues with you know electronics for sure for entertainment and some of these new transmissions still have no how about that shoes the question though had to do with mentioned testers and stuff like that I mean did the person think that we are testing the reliability data comes you know from our subscribers nothing to do with us and and to that point I mean we we buy you know at least 50 cars every year and sometimes they break on us has nothing to do this right this all has to come from all comes from our subscribers who are telling us what their problems were our car which their cars and sometimes it's hundreds or even thousands of model model years they're they're giving the information so we really have over a half a million vehicles in our in our survey every year right so it's pretty pretty comprehensive yeah it's a second why do manufacturers avoid column-mounted shifter z' i had an O six pilot and it was so useful having all of that freed up center console space basically a big storage tray where I could just throw all of my stuff seems like it made perfect economic sense been looking around and can't find that in newer cars virtually all cars now seem to put the gear selector on the center console well I'm sure Jake's gonna have a bunch to say about this but I'll weigh in first I think it's it's two things I think well there's two things that are going on first of all I think it's just not cool anymore to have the shifter right there and secondly we're noticing that they're also going away from what was cool for a while which was the the console right shift lever and now like we just talked about this unintuitive push button system that you know Honda and Acura have and other companies are doing or you know Chrysler Ram you know had they have the the dial that you do the shifter so they're they're still trying to this kept space clean right there now now they're trying to and then they had the consulship to here so it wasn't clean anymore but I think it also has to do with you know everything's bucket seats these days you know you couldn't have when you had a bench seat engine right could it really have that's hurtful sorry you can't have a console shifter you know when you would the bench seat it just doesn't and someone's got the shifter between it's like it's like a pickup in the old days with a bench seat and a manual transmission the person in the middle was like had the shifter between their legs I would add two things to one you touched on it everything's gone to electronic shifters I mean you don't have the cable and everything that has to run down first and - we've asked to put a lot more in that column it's stuffed full of airbags we want it to tilt we want it to telescope we want it to collapse in a crash maybe that real estate is actually more valuable for other things then it didn't stop you remember stock and we still have cars I mean the Tesla has a stock that's a that's a you're right I mean mark that down I'm not sorry one time but it's like you know here's the thing it's like obviously I mean we see all these crazy electronic shifters or anyway these little dip switches where you sit there and you have that you know the magnifying glasses and and and a you know tweezers trying to shape change their gears it's obviously real estate is a premium and then you get into this car and you've got this left stock you know and some of them like everything's on the left stock because they're still have this mindset of the shifters over here right so you got a letter stock that's three things over here yeah drive it the you know expedition and it's like you know wipers you got rear wiper and turn signal and you got all these other things on these and there's nothing over here so I mean it just makes sense ergonomically to do that rather than having some kind of weird contraption trying to change my gears I mean we're going for the the gesture controls to put it in reverse that's that's next but why aren't they doing it I mean certainly okay fine we don't have eventually you don't have to do it but it it's smart they should do that I think I think it's exactly what you said it seems old yeah because that's why we're seeing these a lot of these new new shifters nice name cool why are you doing this is it better is it easier well no it seems more modern is it safer the saver No so it's like it's just it seems all yeah right this Klunk Klunk it's a fashion thing it is and that's unfortunate finally 1999 my 1999 Toyota Solara v6 5-speed special order was destroyed in a crash what are the current reliable manual card choices you'll both love this besides the new according Civic no European high-maintenance options please person doesn't like Europa no so I did some homework you know I will say more than anything what I find really annoying is that you've got notes I've got a bunch of notes he's got no no it's annoying it must be nice to be that smart but so I looked it up and and there's there actually a decent amount of manual car still but there really isn't anything that's that close to this person's uh you know what basically is a camera was a camera coupe yeah yeah and I like that they were really excited they're really proud that they special ordered that's kind of neat right they really wanted that that they went out for yeah so there are some but and some of them some of these cars you the caveat is that the manual transmission is only available on the lowest trim or the lowest trims yeah but there are some that so we can't do euro cars I think the closest to that car that the Solara would be maybe a Mazda 6 which you you know it's a it's a little sporty ER then that sallower was but you can get the manual transmission because Mazda does care about driving you get it in the sport and the touring but not the Grand Touring you can only get the automatic up there Subaru Forester you can get the meaning of transmission in the 2.5 I and the 2.5 I premium but not on the limited the touring or the XT of course my favorite some of my favorite cars stood at a 86 and Subaru BRZ you know for Solera driver I'm just throwing that out there you know like manual transmissions yeah then there's some other ones like Subaru Crosstrek you can manage transmission come standard on the 2.0 I and the two-point I premium unavailable limited Hyundai Elantra on its standard on the base SE and the or but you can't get it on any of the other trim so you so there's some you know give and take there yeah and same thing he doesn't want the Civic or the Accord I think the courts interesting because it's not just on the the base version it's it's you can get on the higher trims too and you can't get it on a camera anymore that's maybe the big thing you can't get a manual transmission on his camera so here's the deal so so 1999 okay I mean here's the thing cars have gotten bigger and roomier yes since then so if you're talking about a Camry or Solera in 1999 you're probably talking about a smaller car today that's a--that's that size so truly I mean you look a civic or something is is going to suit this person said no Civic or she right row but that's to me there is one there's one car and it's the Mazda 3 stick that's the yeah and I'll tell you what that's the car it's because it's a fantastic car in is a fantastic shifter I mean the shifting mechanism and the clutch is just so silky smooth that it just makes that vehicle a joy to drive you could get the hatch you could get it is just the hatch makes it so practical but the nice read that they painted yeah but you know the sporty to I mean the Salar right again yeah okay fine it's not a two-door but I mean again there's a sporty thing about I think the the Mazda 3 yeah I thought you were saying there was a sporty thing about the Solero you know the person's issues would the Euro cars was not reliability but high maintenance causes right was the issue but I do want to just say you know you can still get a BMW 3-series and an Audi a4 with manual transmissions and that's very important you know who knows how long that will be the case because it is going away but you know more on more and more cars enjoy your Mazda 3 you will firstly you can get amazing transmission on a Mazda cx-3 or cx-5 and for a company like Mazda that's kind of surprising it's kind of a loss and we've talked about it so no one demand if no one's buying them yeah and we said you know we were joking a my tap class there was a young girl who said I'm gonna learn to your was dick in my tap dancing okay look at me okay okay I tap but anyway she's young 16 just getting away and she said I'm gonna learn to drive a stick and her perception was oh it'll be much better fuel economy and that kind of gap is closing so it doesn't have already teaching my son how to drive stick and I'm telling you his first car will be a stick then and for safety right because it makes it much harder to be distracted much harder to do that stuff that's that is where it's at so now but your this this young lady she was doing it more just because she wants to know how to drive a man yes which I thought was because and it sit there because that's also funny because I think you know things like that are going away we do less and less by hand you know driving a man transmission isn't art I don't want to get too much into the weeds but heel and toe down shifting with a manual transmission is an art that's a way of down shifting lifting the throttle look it up look it up on Google folks who find that was the first thing I wanted to do when I learned how to drive a car was I had to figure out how to do heel and toe downshift you know so I you know Miranda Lambert Jake doesn't know country music yes you do I do she has a song automatic and it talks about how no one's doing anything by hand anymore everything they want everything fed to them and she has a line that she says God knows that shifting gears ain't what it used to be I learned to drive that 55 just like a queen three on the tree and you know that's really old-school I just repeat on the tree but I thought that was kind of interesting you know because for me I think there is something to the art of driving up driving a manual transmission and it makes no we'll see so thank you for watching that's all we've got today see you next time youthis week we talk about our trip to the SAE government industry meeting and how we're hoping to common eyes confusing names for safety features we also touch on our first impressions of the Honda clarity plug-in Hybrid and take viewer questions next on talking car all right and welcome to the show I'm Jennifer stock burger I'm Jake Fisher and I'm like - all so this week we kind of have our own news Jake and I have just gotten back from the SAE government industry show which is kind of a one-stop shopping of society of automotive engineers who sponsor the the conference engineers from academia and manufacturers etc government National Highway Traffic Safety Administration EPA policy makers and industry so all the manufacturers are there it's held in conjunction with the Washington Auto Show so everybody's kind of in one place and and as we would expect Jake what were the big takeaways from the show well obviously we're still talking about timeless driving right I mean everyone's talking about autonomy they're talking about you know how did you implement it safely when is it going to happen just all of the pieces I mean we were talking a lot about trying to break apart autonomy and figure out like you know make it clear you know what's one of the building blocks what what is really true autonomy but I think one of the interesting things was so we had this roundtable right and and it was kind of like the the so I was moderating it there was like he was excellent he was excellent he was funny I wouldn't know I'm not part of it I think he's talking cars experience helped it was really good I think that helped but I mean it was like the world's longest talking cars that went on for which two hours and we were getting like questions stuff like that but one of the really interesting things that came out of because we were talking about not just like this March to autonomy but like do people care your people want this and what is that going to being said we've talked a bit about you know what is what's that going to mean is it going to be this this topic future or is it going to be great and what not but what was it the guy from Natta right yes this was the vice chairman of the national automotive automotive dealers association Wesley Lutz and he said right so and he said and we was questions about you know what is bringing people into the dealers and kind of unprompted he's like well there's two things they're bringing people and buying cars because we're like you know 18 million you know cars were bought last year's I mean we record really high levels of Cara purchasing and he's a books bringing coming in the dealers people are coming in because the increased fuel economy which we talked about but also the safety features they're seeing that as a big reason to come in and buy the stuff not so much you know autonomy and no car has autonomy and and you know they were talking about two different things like only 10% of the people really want a car that's autonomous or they feel safe about you know having a car that's on the road Turner's but really it's a safety features yep yeah and and with that we kind of took the opportunity with all these players in the room to kind of pitch an idea that we've been talking about and we want to share with you about would it be beneficial so so Jake said people are coming in for safety features and we're talking on automatic emergency braking and for I'm warning lying spot warning those kinds of things is that we hope yeah so they're saying I want safety I don't even think that consumers know exactly what they want they just know that the stuff is out there and they want to get it but what is it so this initiative we've been talking about is wouldn't it be great if we could call these things the same things at least at the building block level well it's funny because we actually you know we've been struggling without ourselves because the manufacturers call these things so many different names right so we actually as a group came up with you know we kind of voted on we made this big document voted on what's what's the best way to call blind spot warning or blind spot monitoring your blind spot assist all these different things and so we we worked on that because it's like I made this list or I have this list of all the different ways things are called right and I mean just like you guys could see this yeah you should see I mean I can barely read it but for like automatic emergency braking which is one of the things we really harp on right we think all cars should have standard it's confusing for the for the regular buyer to go in and know what they're getting right and so I mean like now or even in the recent past there's collision mitigation braking presents front presense city frontal collision warning low-speed autumn forward automatic emergency braking pre collision assist you know intelligent brake assist collision prevention assist Plus you know so how do you know what you're really good and what's interesting is that like so you look at and this is the first time something like this happened we saw this before with stability control so we were like huge proponents of stability patrol back in 1999 when we start started seeing it and we you know tried to work with the manufacturers like can you just call it the same thing and it we never got there you know it was dynamic enhanced traction plus and telev whatever you know right yeah I'd like to avoid that I mean essentially you came in 2012 it becomes standard and kind of went away but but good luck if you're looking for a used car and trying to figure out whether or not instability control or not right so so we kind of pitched this idea of let's try and common eyes and it was a great analogy in the meeting of generic drug names or the base drug names and the marketed names and we recognized we don't want to mess with their marketing but we said I'm your pro friends ibuprofen you can call it advil you can call it motrin and you can market it but when somebody clicks on it ultimately they say it's like oh I know what I'm getting so we thought we'd play a little game here about not only the packages I'm channeling my inner Letterman card about what some of the packages are called and what are the components in them and see if we can kind of figure it out ourselves so the first one I had here is driver confidence package when we say that and we may know some of these you know so what could it be what could a driver come in this package that that's easy at the linked kit for your truck right because I mean you could drive over stuff well I would have more confidence you know if I had you know the 33 inch wheels and tires and or it's just a sense of self like you're gonna you know it's it's a streaming tape that tells you you know you're you're good today you're special so driver confidence is a General Motors Chevrolet that's their safety package driver confidence package and it does include the things we talk about that we want forward collision alert not consistent necessarily low-speed front automatic braking and there's actually a driver confidence one and two so when you add the two you don't compete so it's a little bit along to those points right I mean all breaking it doesn't break automatically in all situations right it's only in emergency situations we call it a B which a lot of people call it but there's not even calling the components the ingredients the same thing right so the recipe the generic drug not the same all right city safety alarm system watch they see something that's important again automatic emergency braking and this is Volvo forward collision warning so they've got the ingredients right eyesight just I mean I have 2015 busy I'm good it's a windshield that actually is a lens that helps you see windshield washer cleaner yeah opportunity making fun of they all have their special little Suites of safety systems and not only is it confusing what the the suite right you know has in it but then it's even confusing when you look at what is comprised of and you're like I don't know what these things are I think eyesight would be a great name for the LED headlight package they're using high beam headlights and it doesn't have pre-collision braking again not automatic emergency braking which we would prefer lane departure warning lane keeping us and we like eyesight this is super Oseberg and i will really like somehow done a good job with that one because it seems like a lot of people actually know what eyesight is and then wanted you know yeah that's right accurate watch right not my cheap thing Jake's got the fancy one and there's Honda watch and after watching I also think this implies some sort of this vision benefit well Honda is more Honda's its Honda sensing right it's accurate watching Honda sensing right is it exactly sensing it's very sensitive that's important and finally one that we really like is safety sense that's Toyota really a broad name what is safety sense and it does include a number of things well there's a safety sense P I mean if you do the full thing your life's different versions that have different ingredients safety sense P includes some pedestrian detection that's my deciphering face it's the base version that does have a pre collision system which is their automatic emergency braking Auto high beams things like so yeah so but again like you need a pre-collision system right yeah that could be it could be about lightening up it could be you know allocating brakes ready to go on you know so there's so many things it could be right it's even confusing when you look at you know a car's motor only the window sticker and you're trying to figure out what okay what really is that that you know and I think that's what we're saying at that level so let me ask you this since I like I said I'm not in your secret society they need a like a society of automotive journalist or like si J or something right since you guys won't let me into your society so what was the takeaway you guys presented this and he said you know we think there should be common nomenclature right were the manufacturers you know they were represented by the automotive auto motive Alliance and the global automotive alliance and there wasn't a you guys are not this is never going to happen and I figure the balance is you may still see those words Acura watch Toyota Safety sense but there was kind of a sense that it might be okay to call the components the same thing I think it's in their best interest if it was all called the same thing right well so we said and you know so and we're not saying like I said we as a group came up with what we're gonna call these going forwards we're not gonna use the manufacturers names for the most part we're gonna you know call forward collision warning we're gonna call it FCW or forward collision warning automatic emergency braking blind spot warning not Blind Spot Assist or anything like that so we just came up with what we thought was the most descriptive right but I think it would be in their best interest if they came up with kind of like electronic stability control everyone knows what or even ABS that's something that everyone knows right what anti-lock brakes it seemed to get caught in it anti-lock brakes weren't allowed if if they did that I think it would be better for them because then people would know okay they don't know what Acura watches but in when they look on the window sticker and see what it is and it says for a collision warning automatic okay I know exactly what that so we actually did this so we did we actually created a list of kind of our names lack of anyone else having them and definitions so people could check those out so maybe a couple asks of our viewers one take a look at those definitions see if you think the names make sense look at the show notes below there's a link to our definition see if they make sense the other thing is do US consumers think that having those base definitions regardless of what the packages are called that we throw on the floor does that help you as a shopper leave a comment or better yet we've been asking for video send us a 30 second video consumerreports.org slash talking cars so we hope this gets some momentum so next up new at the track we have the Honda clarity it's really Justin I don't think I've even been in it I haven't even been in it yet so new Honda we did have some experience with the clarity fuel cell version that that we borrowed and had some driving in but impressions well yeah so the clarity is kind of unique because there's three versions of it you know there's a fuel cell which we had here for a little bit you know we rented from Honda and then there's a full electric and then there's the plug-in hybrid which is what we bought in which we think for sure most people are going to buy that car it's the you know the most normal in a sense yeah you know the fuel cell there's not an infrastructure yet to for that to work right and the the full electric version only has what 89 miles or 80 which is well not a range yeah these days you know it seems like you shouldn't come out with a full electric car unless you're gonna be you know close to 200 right so we bought the regular one the plug-in plug-in hybrid and you know it's it's not a bad driving car it's it's got okay power you know it's what's nice about these kind of you know hybrids plug-in hybrids like this is it has this 47 miles or so of Britain yes you know unless you floor it if you floor it it's still gonna become a regular hybrid and then the engine will kick on it becomes much louder but so it has a really nice take off from a stop because it's just full electric smooth power there's no you know if - what about a transmission doing anything weird or you know the interior is actually really nice it's got some really cool wood trim yeah the front and rear a pretty decent room the trunk is kind of not it's not as large as you'd expect you know there's some compromises there many hybrids yeah but I didn't think it was a bad driving vehicle you know it's not sporty vehicle by any stretch of the imagination so so I so I driven it and it was funny I dropped off my kids in the morning for ski club and I had to throw a snowboard in and all skis into it and then I picked them up with the our Hyundai Accent and the Hyundai Accent it was so much easier to carry the snowboard and skis and that and that larger far more expensive clarity and I think that's what bothers me battery boom that's a base I even the battery it's it's the cut so you look at the car and it's all kind of weird shaped it almost looks like a an overgrown Prius but here's the problem so like my wife has a 2006 Prius which is a hatchback in it so it's been a hatchback for many years and the new generations are - and it's very versatile right that's what looks different which I obviously clarity was trying to look different and it's got the funny thing it did that at a college I mean it's got a big ol rear end and it's covering up the rear wheel yeah somehow getting extra air out of it and whatnot but what drive me nuts is even though thing looks like a hatchback it's got this tiny little pass-through that allows you to put stuff up so I'm like shoving the skis in the snowboard and whatever and there's a pretty large car and then I go pick over the accent and a giant pass-through no problem she folds down I'm like really I mean I'm confused by the whole Honda you know a hybrid thing anyway I mean you've got the insight coming out you know we've got a new version of the insight we've got this clarity you've got an accord hybrid right I don't understand why all these different versions why not just come out with one good way I don't know like I feel like Honda's got burned because I mean they came out with you know you know core you know hybrids and they had Civic hybrids I mean pretty early on nobody really noticed and I think it was that you know Prius looked different and Prius was almost like a new brand for Toyota and it had the statement and almost like it it was almost like a you know they people were in California we were you know stars were driving around Priuses it wasn't happening Candace if entire bed so they're trying to get you know clarity which you know has this you know they they've made fuel cells are thinking fuel cells it looks different I don't know it's gonna work for them though because I mean they're not it's it's not a practical car it's not really design doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me they've hit that Goldilocks as you mentioned between the range anxiety of all electric and the infrastructure inability of the fuel cell I do think like you say that that back up in that peace of mind of having that gas that's just being a plug-in hybrid and there's other choices aren't that party it's 42 mpg combined EPA so it's not like it's you know 50 to like a right like a Prius you know or a hyundai ioniq or Camry Hybrid yeah right so it just doesn't seem like it makes a whole lot of sense I think little things too they carried the push-button shifter it's got the old touch screen system right touch screen in the unintuitive that's right so what's causing missions but it said we're gonna have it for a while we're gonna put it through all all of our tests and see what happens right so new here so the next thing is we do have some viewer questions that you guys have sent in and we'll talk about so first wanted to know according to CR what is the definition of reliability it seemed to be it seems to be a very vague term different testers could mean different things when it comes to reliability average reliability according to many think ratings seems to be similar to excellent reliability ten years ago I'm gonna throw this to Jake because he's the most sure yeah I mean the definition reliability for us at Consumer Reports is is more cut-and-dry than I think other sources and part of that reason is we're not talking about quality other people talk about quality we don't use that term because people's idea of quality could be different things reliability is stuff that broke right is it working or not working did it actually break and that's actually a very black-and-white type of it doesn't leave it to the consumer of you know do I like the way this thing works or not does it make a lot of noise or not there's a ride poorly or not we're not asking right they're not perceptions they're did you have to go get something fixed right now that said I mean every time we're talking about new cars we're comparing it to all the other new cars available so it does make it a little bit difficult to compare to you know ten years ago well I will tell you I mean spoiler alert older cars have more problems than your cars we'll just say that you know we're definitely looking at different ways you can actually compare newer cars to your new cars to use cars that's definitely something I think that's that's worthwhile but I will say that over the last five years I mean a lot of people always like well our new cars you know more reliable or all of them related no new cars do have a lot of problems there are different kinds of problems though we're seeing a lot of issues with you know electronics for sure for entertainment and some of these new transmissions still have no how about that shoes the question though had to do with mentioned testers and stuff like that I mean did the person think that we are testing the reliability data comes you know from our subscribers nothing to do with us and and to that point I mean we we buy you know at least 50 cars every year and sometimes they break on us has nothing to do this right this all has to come from all comes from our subscribers who are telling us what their problems were our car which their cars and sometimes it's hundreds or even thousands of model model years they're they're giving the information so we really have over a half a million vehicles in our in our survey every year right so it's pretty pretty comprehensive yeah it's a second why do manufacturers avoid column-mounted shifter z' i had an O six pilot and it was so useful having all of that freed up center console space basically a big storage tray where I could just throw all of my stuff seems like it made perfect economic sense been looking around and can't find that in newer cars virtually all cars now seem to put the gear selector on the center console well I'm sure Jake's gonna have a bunch to say about this but I'll weigh in first I think it's it's two things I think well there's two things that are going on first of all I think it's just not cool anymore to have the shifter right there and secondly we're noticing that they're also going away from what was cool for a while which was the the console right shift lever and now like we just talked about this unintuitive push button system that you know Honda and Acura have and other companies are doing or you know Chrysler Ram you know had they have the the dial that you do the shifter so they're they're still trying to this kept space clean right there now now they're trying to and then they had the consulship to here so it wasn't clean anymore but I think it also has to do with you know everything's bucket seats these days you know you couldn't have when you had a bench seat engine right could it really have that's hurtful sorry you can't have a console shifter you know when you would the bench seat it just doesn't and someone's got the shifter between it's like it's like a pickup in the old days with a bench seat and a manual transmission the person in the middle was like had the shifter between their legs I would add two things to one you touched on it everything's gone to electronic shifters I mean you don't have the cable and everything that has to run down first and - we've asked to put a lot more in that column it's stuffed full of airbags we want it to tilt we want it to telescope we want it to collapse in a crash maybe that real estate is actually more valuable for other things then it didn't stop you remember stock and we still have cars I mean the Tesla has a stock that's a that's a you're right I mean mark that down I'm not sorry one time but it's like you know here's the thing it's like obviously I mean we see all these crazy electronic shifters or anyway these little dip switches where you sit there and you have that you know the magnifying glasses and and and a you know tweezers trying to shape change their gears it's obviously real estate is a premium and then you get into this car and you've got this left stock you know and some of them like everything's on the left stock because they're still have this mindset of the shifters over here right so you got a letter stock that's three things over here yeah drive it the you know expedition and it's like you know wipers you got rear wiper and turn signal and you got all these other things on these and there's nothing over here so I mean it just makes sense ergonomically to do that rather than having some kind of weird contraption trying to change my gears I mean we're going for the the gesture controls to put it in reverse that's that's next but why aren't they doing it I mean certainly okay fine we don't have eventually you don't have to do it but it it's smart they should do that I think I think it's exactly what you said it seems old yeah because that's why we're seeing these a lot of these new new shifters nice name cool why are you doing this is it better is it easier well no it seems more modern is it safer the saver No so it's like it's just it seems all yeah right this Klunk Klunk it's a fashion thing it is and that's unfortunate finally 1999 my 1999 Toyota Solara v6 5-speed special order was destroyed in a crash what are the current reliable manual card choices you'll both love this besides the new according Civic no European high-maintenance options please person doesn't like Europa no so I did some homework you know I will say more than anything what I find really annoying is that you've got notes I've got a bunch of notes he's got no no it's annoying it must be nice to be that smart but so I looked it up and and there's there actually a decent amount of manual car still but there really isn't anything that's that close to this person's uh you know what basically is a camera was a camera coupe yeah yeah and I like that they were really excited they're really proud that they special ordered that's kind of neat right they really wanted that that they went out for yeah so there are some but and some of them some of these cars you the caveat is that the manual transmission is only available on the lowest trim or the lowest trims yeah but there are some that so we can't do euro cars I think the closest to that car that the Solara would be maybe a Mazda 6 which you you know it's a it's a little sporty ER then that sallower was but you can get the manual transmission because Mazda does care about driving you get it in the sport and the touring but not the Grand Touring you can only get the automatic up there Subaru Forester you can get the meaning of transmission in the 2.5 I and the 2.5 I premium but not on the limited the touring or the XT of course my favorite some of my favorite cars stood at a 86 and Subaru BRZ you know for Solera driver I'm just throwing that out there you know like manual transmissions yeah then there's some other ones like Subaru Crosstrek you can manage transmission come standard on the 2.0 I and the two-point I premium unavailable limited Hyundai Elantra on its standard on the base SE and the or but you can't get it on any of the other trim so you so there's some you know give and take there yeah and same thing he doesn't want the Civic or the Accord I think the courts interesting because it's not just on the the base version it's it's you can get on the higher trims too and you can't get it on a camera anymore that's maybe the big thing you can't get a manual transmission on his camera so here's the deal so so 1999 okay I mean here's the thing cars have gotten bigger and roomier yes since then so if you're talking about a Camry or Solera in 1999 you're probably talking about a smaller car today that's a--that's that size so truly I mean you look a civic or something is is going to suit this person said no Civic or she right row but that's to me there is one there's one car and it's the Mazda 3 stick that's the yeah and I'll tell you what that's the car it's because it's a fantastic car in is a fantastic shifter I mean the shifting mechanism and the clutch is just so silky smooth that it just makes that vehicle a joy to drive you could get the hatch you could get it is just the hatch makes it so practical but the nice read that they painted yeah but you know the sporty to I mean the Salar right again yeah okay fine it's not a two-door but I mean again there's a sporty thing about I think the the Mazda 3 yeah I thought you were saying there was a sporty thing about the Solero you know the person's issues would the Euro cars was not reliability but high maintenance causes right was the issue but I do want to just say you know you can still get a BMW 3-series and an Audi a4 with manual transmissions and that's very important you know who knows how long that will be the case because it is going away but you know more on more and more cars enjoy your Mazda 3 you will firstly you can get amazing transmission on a Mazda cx-3 or cx-5 and for a company like Mazda that's kind of surprising it's kind of a loss and we've talked about it so no one demand if no one's buying them yeah and we said you know we were joking a my tap class there was a young girl who said I'm gonna learn to your was dick in my tap dancing okay look at me okay okay I tap but anyway she's young 16 just getting away and she said I'm gonna learn to drive a stick and her perception was oh it'll be much better fuel economy and that kind of gap is closing so it doesn't have already teaching my son how to drive stick and I'm telling you his first car will be a stick then and for safety right because it makes it much harder to be distracted much harder to do that stuff that's that is where it's at so now but your this this young lady she was doing it more just because she wants to know how to drive a man yes which I thought was because and it sit there because that's also funny because I think you know things like that are going away we do less and less by hand you know driving a man transmission isn't art I don't want to get too much into the weeds but heel and toe down shifting with a manual transmission is an art that's a way of down shifting lifting the throttle look it up look it up on Google folks who find that was the first thing I wanted to do when I learned how to drive a car was I had to figure out how to do heel and toe downshift you know so I you know Miranda Lambert Jake doesn't know country music yes you do I do she has a song automatic and it talks about how no one's doing anything by hand anymore everything they want everything fed to them and she has a line that she says God knows that shifting gears ain't what it used to be I learned to drive that 55 just like a queen three on the tree and you know that's really old-school I just repeat on the tree but I thought that was kind of interesting you know because for me I think there is something to the art of driving up driving a manual transmission and it makes no we'll see so thank you for watching that's all we've got today see you next time you\n"