I’m most familiar with Canadian pricing, and since a while, it’s been more common for manuals to be more significantly more expensive than automatic. e.g it’s like $10k extra for a manual Mazda 3 or a Cadillac CT4-V or $15k extra for a manual Mustang. This commonly is because manuals are limited to higher trim levels... but that’s kinda like EVs for some models - even if the trim is upgraded, it’s still $10k more expensive.
But you compare different cars. If you compare the same high performance vehicles (but not luxury) where there are both options - then manual often is the same or cheaper.
For many manual enthusiasts, a Mazda3 GX is effectively the “same car” as a Mazda3 Sport GT, with the significant difference being that the latter has manual transmission.
For me, most of the differences between a GX and a Sport GT, other than the transmission, are about as relevant as the paint colour, so telling me that they’re not comparable is like saying that I can’t compare two cars because the manual version is only available with an expensive quad-coat matte paint job. To me, that fancy paint job isn’t relevant - what’s relevant is that the manual transmission costs $10k more.
