America’s recent spat of tariffs has been as confusing as they’ve been exhausting. From threats to roll-backs to pauses to judicial action, everyone’s still trying to figure out where things actually stand in practice. As such, automakers around the world are grappling with ways to mitigate the impact of these import taxes, but at the end of the day, it’s fairly obvious that consumers will be the ones footing the final bill. Take a look at this: tariffs have reportedly helped kill off not just America’s cheapest new car, but also the last new car sold here with a five-speed manual transmission.
The base Nissan Versa S with the manual transmission is the last new car that you can buy, including freight fees, for under $20,000. Specifically, you’re looking at $18,330 including freight for a brand new car with a warranty, compared to $20,130 for the same model with a continuously variable transmission. It’s also the last car you can buy in America with a five-speed manual transmission, with everything else having either added an extra ratio or two, or ditched the row-your-own experience entirely.
However, you might not be able to buy one that way for long. A recent Automotive News report claims that production of the stick-shift Versa has been put on pause for America, and claims tariffs “put [the] nail in the coffin” for the cheapest variant of the Mexican-built economy car. As the outlet wrote:
On May 13, Nissan projected that President Donald Trump’s tariffs could cost the company about ¥450 billion ($3.1 billion) in the fiscal year ending next March.
But the economics of producing the manual Versa were unfavorable even before geopolitics pushed its cost up 25 percent.
Fewer than 5 percent of the 42,589 Versa hatchbacks Nissan sold in the U.S. last year had manual transmissions.
Admittedly, even though the car we’re looking at is built in North America and thus should receive some tariff carve-outs for its North American content under the USMCA agreement, the business case for the base Versa was shaky at best. Assuming a roughly five percent take rate, you’re looking at a maximum of 2,129 cars at the absolute bottom of a segment with razor-thin margins. However, it’s actually a smaller number than that. A Nissan spokesperson confirmed that fewer than three percent of Versas sold last year had manual transmissions, which means we’re only looking at around 1,277 cars in the best-case scenario.
Homologation for U.S. sales isn’t cheap, parts support to keep items like clutch discs and flywheels in stock for the car’s expected lifespan isn’t cheap, it’s an obvious low-volume low-profit car to cull. Needless to say, we’ve reached out to Nissan about this and will update you as we hear more, but for now, I can’t help but feel a sense of loss.
The Versa is a car that’s best enjoyed cheap, but that certainly doesn’t make it deficient in any way. Sure, it’s loud inside compared to a Sentra and more susceptible to crosswinds than its bigger brother, but it does the necessary car stuff well. It’s spacious, practical, has more comfortable seats than some cars a class size up, and is reasonably economical. The manual model takes a big hit over the CVT model at 30 MPG combined versus 35 MPG combined, but even that lower figure isn’t bad. Best of all, the manual distills the Versa down to its ethos, a simple yet nice enough car for those with reasonably tight budgets. The $20,000 barrier is a big one to break, and if we ditch the last sub-$20k car, we’d move another big step away from the car market we used to know. You can almost think of it as a load-bearing economy car in some sense.
Of course, subcompacts are only one facet of the automotive kingdom, but if you go back a few decades, lots of manufacturers offered five forward ratios, one of which is an overdrive. The five-speed manual gearbox was a huge improvement over the four-speed for cruising economy, but it was also egalitarian. Five manually selected forward ratios is something a Lamborghini Diablo, an early Porsche Cayman, a ’90s GM pickup truck, a mid-2000s Ford Mustang GT, a Fiat 500, and a first-generation Scion xB all had in common. More than that, there’s a beautiful symmetry to the shift pattern on many five-speed manual vehicles. Six gates, including reverse, often set up in three vertical lines of two. Sure, a single-overdrive six-speed can offer closer ratios across the same ratio spread and is objectively technically superior, but for the longest time, a five-speed was the expected default.
It’s worth noting that you can still buy a base stick-shift Versa off a dealer’s lot in America. However, once those cars are gone, they’re gone. So, if you want a brand new sub-$20,000 uncomplicated car with a sturdy manual transmission, simple suspension, and trusty port fuel injection rather than carbon build-up-aiding direct injection, one of the last few stick-shift Nissan Versa sedans on American lots isn’t just your best bet, it’s your only bet, and one that may have only been able to exist in a world before auto tariffs. We’re going to miss it when it’s truly gone for good.
Update: Nissan has confirmed to us the discontinuation of the stick-shift Versa, and issued the following statement:
We remain committed to offering a lineup that answers the evolving needs of customers and maintains Nissan’s competitive edge. We are focusing on the most popular Versa grades that deliver the strongest business performance and are in line with what customers are looking for from this type of sedan.
Top graphic credit: Nissan
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If the local Nissan dealer would stock them, they would’ve sold one more than that.
I would argue that zero percent of the Nissan Versa Hatchbacks produced last year were manuals, in light of the fact that it is only available as a sedan. ????
Additionally, I’ll take umbrage with the comically low MPG reported for the manual…even with calculating in the speedometer inaccuracy, coupled with the inherent trip computer inaccuracy, I have returned as high as 38 mpg hwy, and rarely have seen a tankfull yield worse than about 33.
Ha. Good riddance. Seems most buyers understand the benefits the superior transmission choice offers is worth the higher initial purchase cost anyway.
You lose, manual enthusiasts. The future is here now, and it’s Xtronic.
A 5M is the only way I’d even consider a Versa.
But this tariff crap reminds me of what I do when an old credit card expires after I receive the new one. I just bend it back and forth until it falls apart. And then I do that again with the two halves.
I’ve read that the card data is encoded three times on the mag strip on the back.
Maybe I should empty my shredder, empty and recycle that paper, run the card through it and throw that in the trash.
Hard to know what to do anymore.
And nothing of value has been lost.
Fewer than 5 percent of the 42,589 Versa hatchbacks Nissan sold in the U.S. last year had manual transmissions.
Zero percent of Versa hatchbacks Nissan sold in the US last year had manual transmissions because Nissan hasn’t offered a hatchback variant with this generation. If they had, with a manual, I might have bought it. That sentence strikes me as something an older Detroit-based automotive writer would write. (It’s a cheap Jap car therefore it must be a hatchback…)
The stick might be the first to go but Nissan has been looking for any and every excuse to stop offering the Versa in the US for years now.
It is one of the few models that has spiked upward in sales. This has bought it some time. But that time has definitely been borrowed.
The bigger issue for me as an enthusiast is the death of the 5 speed manual. Having owned a bunch of both, I vastly prefer 5 speeds over 6… and don’t even try to put me in a 7 speed. The issue is that manufacturers instead of making 6 an “interstate only” gear usually evenly spread the ratios out to the point that it causes unnecessary shifting. And yes, I know the whole point of a manual nowadays is unnecessary shifting, but most of us can’t afford to have a toy to drive only for fun on beautiful days off. In any other real world situation other than purposefully driving for sport, less shifting is better. I remember when the NC Miata was new many people and even some outlets even voiced their opinion of liking the 5 speed over the 6 for this reason.
For daily driving I really don’t get the desire for fewer gears. The car I drove most in my life was a 5 speed NB and an extra gear on the highway would have been very welcome.
Yes, it depends entirely on the gearing. I recently drove a Pontiac Vibe with a manual and that was horrible on the freeway–but a blast on gravel roads. The revs in top gear at 80 were far north of 3k rpm. Meanwhile the engine in, say, a Boxster is fairly relaxed at that speed in 5th gear.
It’s simple really. Fewer gears means every gear is taller. Too few gears make the engine sluggish and accelerate slowly… but too many means that you constantly have to shift back in forth from 4 and 5 every time traffic slows down or speeds up instead of just staying in 4 at acceptable revs not eating too much gas or over stressing the engine for no reason.
As long as the car has a relatively powerful/torquey drivetrain, it’s hard to be in the “wrong” gear even with 7 options.
And surely the whole point of a manual is the joy of changing gears? I’d buy autos if I found shifting tedious…
More options means more fun! You can always short shift if some ratios aren’t appropriate for the situation.
Ah, so you mean not the Miatas, MR2, various Honda/Acura products that I’ve traditionally owned then? 🙂
Either you haven’t encountered the situation I’m talking about or, more likely, it just doesn’t bother you… and that’s fine, I get it. But I’ve done the same exact heavy traffic commute with many different cars with both 5 and 6 speeds and I always prefer the 5 speed.
They pry my 5-speed NA Miata and my 5-speed ‘03 Honda CRV from my cold dead hands.
A hairshirt shitbox with a stick is better than a hairshirt shitbox with a CVT – but NOT owning a hairshirt shitbox in the first place is better than either. Nothing of value is being lost here. Buy a used example of something decent instead.
You do realize this mindset is helping to drive up used-car prices? You pay a lot more to get a lot less than you did pre-covid.
I don’t care. There is no reason to drive such utter dreck.
The 2009-2010 recession and the massive production drop due to Covid have a lot more to do with used car prices being what they are than a handful of shitboxes no longer being sold. They did not sell enough of these turds to make any difference at all, which is why they are not long for the world no matter what transmission is in them.
To hear people around here go on you would think there is enough demand to sell a million of these things a year – reality is that Nissan hasn’t sold 100K of them a year in a decade – and that was back when they actually were CHEAP – Versas used to be not that much more than $10K. At $18K++, there are simply far better options if you can possibly stand not having that “new car smell”. Especially for the explodey CVT version.
The used market is one of the reasons it’s difficult to move the “cheap” new cars. So many better used cars out there off-lease, and if you go a bit older there are great bargains to be had. Of course, there are still bad decisions to be made, like buying a used luxury or high-performance model that will quickly drain your wallet in maintenance and repair costs, but there are a lot of reliable mainstream used vehicles out there.
Used to be conventional wisdom for new car buyers to trade in when they hit 100k, as that was when things started breaking (and you probably had a lot of rust). But today? My son is just about ready to get his license, and I picked up a very nicely kept ’15 Outback base with 200k on it and brand new Michelins for under 5 grand.
And if you have the budget for a 20k penalty box and want the comfort of a warranty, you buy the cheaper used car and put some of your savings into a third party warranty or start a repair fund.
Exactly. There is just no reason to buy a $20K new crapcan today. You don’t even necessarily need to go third-party for the warranty, given the ubiquitous CPO offerings with manufacturer’s extended warranty coverage.
There isn’t even a fuel economy penalty anymore – in most cases, the next size or two up get the same or better mileage – and in some cases, MUCH better like an entry-level Camry, now that they are all hybrids. I would trust a 3yo used Camry far more than a new Nissan Versa as a long-term proposition.
Part of the problem is that the Venn diagram overlap between enthusiast manual drivers and people who want a manual Versa barely exists. I’ve had a stick shift car in the fleet for most of the last 15 years and I don’t plan on being without one again, but I don’t have interest in a manual Versa. I don’t expect the take rate is very high. Contrast that with something like the Miata that still has over a 50% manual take rate.
That’s just it, the Versa never offered driving dynamics worth anyone’s time unless you really needed something that was uncomplicated and cheap to repair. It was one of the last vestiges of the old stripped-down ecobox ethos. Terrible to drive with poor engineering quality (yes, it’s gotten better since the really bad Versa of 10 years ago). But it will cost you pennies to run.
These days, even with a higher price point, a lightly-used Prius will likely be more efficient and less costly to run than a Versa. All while being far better on the highway.
true. IMHO the only redeeming, enjoyable-ish Versa was the 1st gen with the 1.8 engine and 6 spd. I owned a 2012 HB with that powertrain and was incredibly peppy for what it was.
It was kind of an econobox sleeper on a straight line, but the tall shifter with short throws felt inadequate and the rear suspension felt like cardboard in curves
We learned to work a clutch on a tractor! The first “road vehicle” Dad put me in was a ’76 D100, with 3 on the tree pulling a hay wagon in the pasture. When it came time to actually drive on ROADS, I was tossed the keys and told to cruise the gravel roads around the farm until I had it figured out. Same thing for my sister and brother. We all still drive stick vehicles today.
That spare Pao transmission that Jason did NOT take apart is now worth $20 more.
The manual had a good run, but it’s time to go; progress marches on. Next up is the Automatic Transmission, to be replaced by Prius-like (or should I say RAV4-like?) hybrid Planetary gearsets, and then, finally, onto the even simpler BEV transmissions.
Your comment is accurate only if you ignore the joy and pleasure of driving a manual.
Indeed. I do pine for that feeling of a buttery-smooth down-shift while picking up speed in a windy corner. And when I drive an EV I sometimes find myself missing the comforting quiet hum and buzz of a regular automatic transmission. Nostalgia that our progeny won’t have. 🙂
Missing a torque converter automatic isn’t nostalgia, it’s stockholm syndrome.
In my experience, most cars are leased, and manufacturers sometimes saddle stick shift cars with lower residuals, which paradoxically gives the more expensive model lower payments. Aside from most folks not wanting to do their own shifting, it’s basically car companies creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Is this still true given today’s news of Trump’s tariffs being struck down by the Court of International Trade?
Do you really think he’s going to abide by that ruling? He (and his limp-dick congress, who actually has tariff power but ceded it to him) are even ignoring the Supreme Court. And so far, nothing is being done about it because a president just ignoring court rulings he doesn’t like is rather unprecedented, so the courts didn’t plan for this. I don’t know what power the Court of International Trade even has to force the administration to abide by this ruling, since none of the other courts seem to have any way of making them listen.
Exactly. The current administration holds two thirds of Governmental control, leaving the Judicial branch little power to stop it.
Their margins in Congress are miniscule. The hold there is NOT firm, especially in the Senate.
The Judicial branch has more power than people seem to think. They can and will deputize their own prosecutors and law enforcement. ONLY Trump himself has immunity “for official acts within the Constitutional bounds of his office”. Ignoring court orders is certainly NOT within those bounds. The Supreme Court certainly shows little sign of rubberstamping his bullshit.
“They can and will deputize their own prosecutors and law enforcement.” They do keep threatening this but then don’t follow through. Put a couple Justice Dept lawyers in the pokey for a few days and Bondi will be busy writing her own BS briefs.
The Supreme Court is the reason this BS is happening in the first place. I haven’t seen Roberts come back out to explain what he understands the word “facilitate” to mean in reference to returning the guy that’s in El Salvador.
They will get there. The wheels of Justice turn slowly, but they do turn.
This is sad.
Oddly, across the border, despite Nissan Canada offering both the Sentra S & SR with a 6MT – the Versa is CVT only.
That is odd Spikedlemon. The idea of Sentras w/manuals is appealing, so Canadians are lucky to at least have that. I wonder what the take rate is for manual Sentras in the Great White North.
In Mexico both the Sentra S, SV and Versa S, SV come with either a CVT or manual transmission. I have seen almost no manual Sentras with the MT but the Versa MT is still popular with rideshare and taxi customers. I’d say its take rate is in the low double digits while the Sentra is probably high single digits.
Thanks B_E! 🙂
As nice as it would be for the relatively small percentage of enthusiasts who’d choose to get a manual Versa/Sentra if it were just possible to drive over the border into Mexico and bring one back, I suspect they’d rush instead to the Suzuki dealer for a sporty version of the new Swift, or (my choice) the Toyota dealership to pick up a Hilux Champ with a manual and a diesel.
Honestly, if it were legal for me to do that and just go buy a nice Hilux Champ and drive it the 2-3 hours back home to LA, I’d literally go do that TODAY and sell my current daily (an old Volvo). Then I could just tool around LA on my errands and whatnot in this ugly/cute/weird boxy little Toyota truck, rowing my own gears, listening to the growl of the diesel (and KSCN/KXLU FM) and not bother car shopping again for a long time.
If only wishes did come true.
PS: AFAIK, there’s no legal/legit way to do this. If someone wants to correct me, I’d be eternally grateful for the info. 😉
Weren’t Nissan going to kill the Versa entirely anyway?
I’d not be surprised.
In an alternate (and better) universe/timeline someone at Nissan found the tooling and a few unfinished bodies for its early 80s 310 coupe and had a few engineering interns shoehorn the drivetrain from a modern manual versa into a 310 coupe body using custom-made brackets and adapters: https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/310_coupe-1536×832.jpg Miraculously, this thing was then put into limited run production.
In that better timeline, I drove over to the big Nissan dealership in Universal City and after test driving one of these in yellow, paid cash for it and drove it home.
Yes, this is the last year for the Versa and Altima. They are just killing manual earlier.
I’ve always been fascinated by how the manual ended up “bookending” the bell curve in the US, with almost all of them at the bottom (economy) or the top (sport). The mainstream was largely ignored.
My last car, originally bought by my dad as a company car in 1998, was a loaded Passat GLX sedan with V6 and manual. It was sneakily quick, on par with the Maxima of the era. But it was one of 200 in all of North America that year. The dealer gave him a great deal on it because, quote, “Nobody really wants a car with leather AND a stick shift.” And that was coming from a VW/Audi dealer in the late 90s. There was an actual mismatch in most customers’ minds that an entry-lux car would have a manual. Sure, BMW did it, but that’s part of their niche.
Then the CVTs got really efficient and killed the economy proposition; and the DCTs got really quick and killed the sport proposition. It was only after it was too late that we started getting nostalgic. And it doesn’t help that in many cases, the manual was NOT cheaper than the auto — that’s why I’m glad to see the Versa keeping the old approach alive.
You forgot to rate the manual on its fun level.
That’s exactly it — it wasn’t a quantifiable metric, so a lot of people didn’t appreciate it until it was gone.
More accurately very few people consider driving to be fun…..
Also there are people who love driving, love stick shifts, but their commute is fucking awful…so automatics (esp. with adaptive cruise w/stop&go) is the way to go.
This happened to me when I had a miserable commute.
I am not sure why that is surprising.
That middle bell curve is comprised mostly with people who need a car to do whatever it is they need to do in a day. Its a tool. With little to no other time-efficient modes of transportation available to the vast majority of Americans who simply need a car they like to do anything, any type of non-manual is preferable.
Auto, CVT, whatever type of hybrid or electric propulsion system is in it doesn’t really matter, as long as they can just start and drive.
I like manuals, but I have the family hauler and its 70-30 split on highway crusing and all other driving. There also hasn’t been very many manuals on a typical family hauler vehicle in my adult life with kids. The Mazda 5 is the only one I really wanted, but I have never seen a used manual for sale near me.
If Ford had made a manual Flex, I would overpaid for one in a heartbeat. The Golf Sportwagen was out there, but pricey for its class and size and honestly, was hard to even find, so I never even test drove it. And I couldn’t afford the 3 series wagon at the time the manual was discontinued in the US.
My back prefers the higher hip position relative to the floor of the vehicle in my RX350 these days anyway, and nothing in that class has a manual at all, to the best of my knowledge.
How many of us first learned to drive a manual in some terrible old econobox that was our first car?
Before you laugh at the death of the manual versa, let it sink in: terrible cheap manual cars won’t exist for the next generation of young drivers.
I learned on my mom’s 1974 Peugeot 504 and taught my friends on my uncle’s 1980 Toyota pickup truck. Now I’m teaching my kid on the remnants of my late father’s 1994 Nissan D21.
1981 Citation with the Iron Duke and a 4-speed manual, and not a single power option, including steering. The parallel parking test was interesting.
The availability of cheap used manual cars has been an issue for a solid decade now, but at this point they’re damn near toast. Unfortunately the manual is going to die out simply from a lack of access.
’88 Civic and ’81 Jetta (both around 1995). My parents co-signed on a ’95 Golf with me, which was a manual even thought I couldn’t drive stick yet. They were pretty adamant. At the time, asking to drive an automatic would be like coming out of the closet. They’d learn to accept it, but the first reaction would have been shock and dismay.
I learned in my dads 77 firebird probably not the best thing for someone to learn stick shift in first haha
I already had a licence for a few months when dad took me to buy a Volkswagen Scirocco. I had never driven a stick before, but had watched dad on his old Dart Sport for many years.
We bought the car, dad gets in his Cordoba and yells, “See you at home”, and blazes outta there. So I got in the Scirocco and just sort of figured it out.
By the time I got home, about 20 miles away, I was a stick-shift driver.
In 2001, I learned on my brother 95 Integra. I don’t know how that thing lasted through two teenagers learning to drive in it, but it never missed a beat.
While my first car was a stick, and rather terrible, I didn’t learn how to drive manual in it. I did, however learn in a shitbox! The first car I officially drove with three pedals was my friends teal 90’s two-door Toyota Tercel. That thing didn’t even have a 5-speed. It had a 4-SPEED!!
I learned the stick on a 67 MGB my Dad had. I taught my son on Kia stick. When I went to buy him a car, he was adamant about not wanting a stick shift car. He said no one drives a stick anymore, and none of my friends would be able to drive it if they had to. I bought him an automatic….fast forward 5 years and I buy a MGB and told him it’ll be his some day, but he’ll need to relearn to drive a stick again LOL
I learned in my mom’s automatic Subaru wagon, but my first car was a Super Beetle, obviously a 4spd since the semi autos were never common
After a lesson or two in a 2-year-old Chevy Sprint it was a 1981 Dodge Omni in 1990 for me.
I think part of the reason Trump is so maladjusted is there aren’t enough stickshift shitboxes in his past. He was 16 in 1962, there were plenty of early ’50s 3-on-the-trees around going for next to nothing, and can a man of his generation really call himself a man if he hadn’t owned a series of rusted-out VW Beetles?
Trump is a rich New Yorker – I am surprised he ever got a license at all.
I learned to drive in a manual (of course) RHD diesel Series Land Rover (in the US). I was about 13-14.
My first car was a manual ’82 Subaru GL. Which was only four years old at the time, and a rather nice car for the day. Hand-me-down from my Grandmother. She also preferred driving sticks. Yankee to the core.
I learned on my dad’s rusted hulk of a 1977 Suburban 2500 4X4. Yes, in olden times one could purchase a 3/4 ton 4 speed manual 4X4 Suburban. I took my driving test in it and failed the parallel park. The instructor let it slide and passed me, stating he’d never try to parallel park a Suburban in real life.