The percentage of cars bought with a manual transmission has been declining for decades. The United States led the world in the shift to slushboxes, but the world has been following, and over half of all cars worldwide are now built with automatics. In the United States, most models aren’t even offered with a manual anymore, and even when a manual is offered it can be hard to find a car with one on dealer lots.

In this context, BMW has been an exception. While the majority of BMWs are sold with automatics, BMW dealers continue to stock stick shift cars. (Try to find a Cadillac or Mercedes dealer with a stick in stock.) This is one of the reasons enthusiasts love the marque.

But even BMW is moving away from manuals. A conventional manual was only belatedly offered in the current M5 super sedan. Initially only the widely reviled SMG automated manual was available. (I’ve never driven an SMG car myself, so I can’t comment.) The redesigned X5 is auto-only.

And now we have the 2008 5-Series, for which I just input pricing into TrueDelta’s database. A manual transmission remains available with all three engines, and even on the wagon. (On a side note, with the 535xi BMW is once again offering a powerful wagon in the U.S., after a few years’ hiatus.) But an automatic transmission is now a no-cost option on all 5-Series models. Can other BMW models be far behind?

It’s hard to fault BMW with offering what was formerly a $1,275 option at no extra cost. It’s quite possible, that as automatic sales have increased and manual sales have declined, that BMW now pays its suppliers as much for manual transmissions as it does for automatics. The automatics could even be cheaper. Such costs are heavily dependent upon volume. General Motors, which sells far more automatics than manuals, was already paying more for manual transmissions than it was for automatics a decade ago. Before it’s all over, manual transmissions will probably become an extra cost option. (This has already been the case in some isolated instances, such as the Pontiac GTO.) Automatics remain an extra-cost option in most cases simply because people expect to pay more for an automatic, and prices are driven by what people will pay, not costs.

But I’ll find fault with this price change anyway. How many people previously went with the stick to save a grand or so? You wouldn’t think many when the car costs over $40,000–might as well get exactly what you want at such prices–but then it’s dangerous to make such assumptions without data. The impact will probably be larger elsewhere in the world, where people might be more likely to give an automatic a shot now that it’s free.

If the decline in manual sales accelerates as a result, even BMW could start offering manual transmissions on fewer models, and eventually perhaps none at all.