Pour One Out for the Hyundai Venue’s Manual Transmission

Hyundai is discontinuing the manual option for the subcompact Venue crossover.

Another six-speed has bitten the dust.

The newest loss is the Hyundai Venue SE with manual transmission. The 2021 model year of the Venue will be offered in three trimlines, none of which will be equipped with a stick shift.

Mercifully(?), the Venue SE will live on with Hyundai’s continuously variable automatic transmission.

Forgive us for not having previously written about the Venue. Admittedly, even with the cool things Hyundai has been doing lately, the Venue is one of the company’s less-inspiring options.

It’s a compact crossover built on the Hyundai Accent platform, which means it’s the Hyundai equivalent of a Ford Ecosport. It comes with a 121-horsepower four-cylinder engine.

That’s part of the problem. Manual transmissions are uncommon in the United States, with many models offered only with automatic transmission options. The American car-buying public is generally not clamoring for more manual transmissions.

So, what’s going to motivate Americans to buy cars with stick shifts?

It should be obvious that the Hyundai Venue is not it.

While it’s a tragedy that yet another six-speed is leaving production, it seems to us that there may be a connection between the unpopularity of the transmission option and the less-than-exciting vehicles that are still built with them.

Hyundai’s only manual gearbox options now are the Veloster, Elantra, and Accent, according to Car and Driver. Meanwhile, in the subcompact SUV segment, the Subaru Crosstrek and Kia Soul still come with manuals.

Luckily, some carmakers continue to champion the manual. Nissan unveiled the Z Proto this week, proudly sporting an old-fashioned six-speed shifter. Ideally, the other companies take note that the only way to salvage the tattered reputation of the manual transmission is to make it attractive to the public.

So we might only have been dimly aware that the Venue came with a manual transmission option, but we’re sad now that it’s gone.

Here’s hoping Hyundai makes up for this news and puts a manual gearbox in some of their more-interesting new offerings.