I was in Europe earlier this year and find that hard to believe. It was like a 10-1 ratio of manuals to automatics in the cars I looked into. I looked in a lot cars because so many of them are unavailable here in the USA. Need to import a Dacia Sandero for obvious reasons. Of course they were the cars parked on the street and may not represent the whole population.Apparently worldwide according to what I read. I was hoping for an 8.5 refresh similar to the 7.5. A little freshening up but no major changes. I’m sure it’ll be more power with the hybrid but the powertrain mentioned is already used in Audi products and doesn’t have a manual. It was already speculated that the manual would die with this refresh before the hybrid news was released. I already still prefer my interior to the Mk8 so I just might keep mine and start modifying next year. I was planning suspension and wheels already but once out of warranty I’ll likely tune it and remove the front resonator.