I believe the real issue is, alike almost all companies (whether it be a car manufacturer or a good manufacturer ) now, they refuse to take any input in from the public until they have made the initial mistake and the only way to remedy it is to go to the consumer and directly ask what they want. That being said the value of the manual transmission lies in their assumption that sub %7 ( 6.89 i believe was the last adjusted number ) is all the micras they intend to import with manuals is kinda stupid. Yes autos are much more popular due to the fact that no one wants to learn how to drive, or re-learn how to drive a stick. In all honesty though 7 out of 100 micras being a stick, is a bit optimistic that people will either want to pay for the auto at base level, or the manual at SR.
That being said, a car company is only so interested in moving a vehicle onto a dealership lot if it makes the dealer profit....... the micra is a bit of an issue in that respect. The best way to see this, and the true value of the vehicle is to look at international websites...... 9 820 England( 9 820 pound = roughly 17k to start ) 14 998 euro in ireland ( almost 20 k ) 11 250 euro in italy, even in mexico their msrp is 150k peso, which is roughly 12k, to start before taxes. I doubt if the micra will stay at 10k to start after the first year of sales.
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View my fuel log 2015 Micra S manual: 6.5 L/100 km ... 43.7 mpg (Imp) ... 15.5 km/L ... 36.4 mpg (US) ...