- the honda accord is no longer available with a six-speed manual transmission.
- it was previously available on the sport trim level, with either the 1.5-liter or 2.0-liter engine choices.
- the 2021 accord will receive a facelift, which will be revealed later this year.
how few people were buying manual-transmission honda accords? the company stopped building them back in december 2019, but we’re only just finding out now, and only because the company told us in a release about 2021 model-year updates.
a six-speed manual transmission was previously a no-cost option for sport models with either the 192-hp 1.5-liter engine or the 252-hp 2.0-liter engine. but honda says the manual made up only around 1 to 2 percent of accord sales, explaining why the company gave up on trying to #savethemanuals in the mid-size sedan segment. extrapolating from the accord's 267,567 units sold in 2019, only around 2500–5000 of those were sold with stick-shifts—apparently not enough for honda to justify the business case. as recently as may, honda's head of product planning, gary robinson, told c/d that the company did not plan to kill any manual-transmission models, and even suggested that it might expand the number of manual offerings.
an updated accord is coming for the 2021 model year, presumably with new styling and features. honda will share more info in a few months, though we admit that we're a bit less enthused about it now that it won't offer a three-pedal option. a cursory search of new accord inventory showed fewer than 20 manual-transmission accords still for sale nationwide as of this writing (out of more than 15,000 total). so if you want one, you're going to have to act fast.