According to a report from the German publicationAutomobilwoche, Mercedes-Benzwill completely phase out its manual transmission offerings for its production vehicles by the end of 2023. “With increasing electrification, we see that customer demand is shifting towards electric mobility components, batteries and electric drive systems,” reasoned a spokesman at Mercedes. Just last year, the automaker announced plans to go all-electric by 2030 with all newly launched architectures to be electric-only from 2025 onwards.
Currently, only Mercedes’A-Class, C-Class, andCLApassenger vehicles offer H-patterned manual transmissions after its Sprinter commercial van was discontinued last year. It’s interesting to note that noMercedes-AMGperformance vehicle has ever come with a manual option, meanwhile,BMW Mreports that they plan to keep the manual gearbox alive until at least 2028.