I love my six speed and anyone who uses logic on this subject does not understand fun.
And he knocks clear out of the park and into the next county, folks! Those of us who prefer the manuals like them for various reasons. But FUN is one of the primary ones. Most folks look at driving as a chore to get from point A to B. It's those folks that'll revel in self-driving cars. But fans of manuals will continue to enjoy the drive, even if it's commuting back and forth to work, or just running down the road to grab some groceries.
Yes, kids, there are folks that enjoy driving.
Back to the topic:
The "death of the manual transmission" isn't going to happen because of EVs. It's happening because of laziness and market pressures. It's expensive as fuck for an auto manufacturer to get various transmissions certified for FE and emissions with each successive generation. We as a community of auto buyers have told the auto manufacturers that, for the most part, we don't care about manual transmission in favor of automatics or DCTs. If you look at just about any car that's available in both, the auto/DCT will vastly outsell the manual version.
It's a shame, but the manufacturers are doing what makes the most sense (and cents) - listening to what the majority of their buyers want, and giving it to them without wasting money on testing/certifying a transmission choice that relatively few will select. This started long before the EV stupidity swept the auto market.
I bought a '23 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing last year after ordering it, specifically with the 6-speed manual. I can't possibly imagine this car with an automatic, but those autos outsell the manuals by a significant percentage. From a monetary perspective, GM is crazy to offer that car as a manual, but the base car's sales more than make up for the costs involve in certifying a one-off. Look to the Corvette, no longer available with a manual at all. DCT only, to the chagrin of a few of us (including the Chief Engineer himself!) Why? Costs. Again, it's hellaciously expensive to get those cars certified, and doing two for each version of the Corvette (base car, Z06, E-Ray, the coming ZR1, etc) would be cost GM a pretty penny. Instead they focused on the DCT because the majority of Corvette buyers in previous generations preferred the automatic. Bleah!