Just ONE new automotive launched within the final 12 months has this conventional inside half that’s nearing extinction
- Just 8% of new models in showrooms today have this once omnipresent feature
A once omnipresent car component that millions of drivers on the road have learned to use and grown to love is nearing extinction, according to a new report.
Just one out of 42 new cars launched in the last 12 months has the feature – and fewer than one in ten models in showrooms today have one, despite the item formerly being a staple of every interior.
The part in question is the manual handbrake, which is rapidly becoming less popular in new models as manufacturers make electronic parking brakes the norm.
Online car sales platform CarGurus carried out analysis and found just 49 out of the 587 different passenger cars on sale in dealers today are fitted with the ‘analogue option’ of a levered handbrake.
This means buyers who want one in their next motor can only choose from 8 per cent of the market.
But can you guess which car – from a firm UK favourite brand – is the only 2024 newcomer to have a manual handbrake installed?
The traditional car part that’s almost wiped out: Just 8% of new models in showrooms have a manual handbrake, a new market report has found
Dacia, the budget-friendly manufacturer, is the one car maker to release a new vehicle in the last 12 months with a manual handbrake.
Its £14,995 Dacia Spring EV – the cheapest electric car on sale in the UK – has arrived on our shores with both a market-leading price and a levered handbrake.
While it might not be a surprise to learn that Dacia has retained the old-hat feature – likely due to the lower cost of fitting one over an electronic parking brake – the decision does make the Spring an outlier in the EV segment.
Almost all new electric vehicles come with an electronic parking brake, which is often the default choice for the latest cars with automatic gearboxes or single-speed transmission, as is the convention for battery-powered cars.
Currently, four in five (80 per cent) of models in Dacia’s product range can be ordered with a manual handbrake.
However, the Romanian brand is very much the exception to the rule when it comes to retaining this old-fashioned component.
This is especially the case after the discontinuation of a number of long-running models in the last 12 months, all of which had manual handbrakes.
The Dacia Spring was the only new car launched in the last 12 months with a manual handbrake
Dacia’s Spring EV is something of an outlier in the world of electric cars, which almost always have electronic parking brakes
This includes the now-defunct VW Up!, Vauxhall Crossland, and Fiat Tipo Cross.
While VW has not replaced its affordable city car, the Vauxhall Frontera and Fiat 600 hybrid – successors to the Crossland and Tipo Cross – are instead sold with electronic alternatives to a handbrake.
Of the 49 cars still on sale in Britain with a manual handbrake, the most popular is the Ford Puma – the best-selling new motor of 2023 and the model that currently tops the charts in 2024.
The Audi A1 Sportback, Mazda2, Skoda Kamiq and Volkswagen T-Cross are among the others to have a handbrake in situ.
Many drivers prefer to have a button-controlled electronic parking brake for convenience and the fact it can combine with hill-hold assist so you don’t roll back when pulling away on an incline.
However, traditionalists will rue the demise of the manual system, especially as it is typically easier and far less expensive to repair if it goes wrong.
Britain’s favourite new car still has a handbrake: The Ford Puma is one of the 49 models in showrooms to still have the old-hat feature
There are plenty of popular cars still on sale with a manual handbrake, including the Mazda2 supermini
Skoda’s Fabia, Scala and Kamiq (pictured) are all yet to switch to electronic parking brakes. Right: The interior of the Kamiq compact SUV
In its previous report, CarGurus warned that repairing an electronic parking brake can be as much as three times the cost of a manual handbrake.
This is Money asked used car warranty provider MotorEasy for an average claim bill to fix both handbrake and electronic parking brake issues.
It told us in March that the average repair cost for a fault with a manual handbrake is around £250, whereas for an electronic parking brake it is more than three times higher at £820.
The rapid decline of the handbrake
CarGurus has been conducting an annual review of the availability of handbrakes in new cars.
In the last six years it has tracked a ‘rapid decline’, with a 73 per cent drop from 2019 to 2024 in models including the traditional feature.
Of the 39 manufacturers analysed, 29 offered a manual handbrake on at least one model in 2019, compared with 19 (out of 38, with Infiniti no longer sold in the UK) in 2024 – a 34 per cent fall.
Furthermore, 137 out of 463 new models (30 per cent) were fitted with a manual handbrake in 2019, compared with 54 out of 595 models (9 per cent) in 2023, and only 49 out of 587 (8 per cent) in 2024.
This chart shows the rapid decline in availability of new cars with manual handbrakes over the last six year
Many drivers would prefer to have a button-controlled electronic parking brake for convenience and the fact it can combine with hill-hold assist so you don’t roll back when pulling away on an incline
Just three of the 39 manufacturers in the study fit a manual handbrake to more than half of their model range, and only 14 (35 per cent) offer the old-school feature in more than one vehicle in their line-ups.
BMW is among the brands to have cleared its range of cars with handbrakes; in 2019, it had 14 cars in showrooms with one, however, today it doesn’t offer any.
Similarly, Fiat, which sold 13 different options with manual handbrakes six years ago, now only has it in four models.
Renault has gone from eight cars with handbrakes to only one over the same period.
Out of the 38 mainstream brands considered, 19 do not sell a new model with a handbrake in 2024. This includes Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Peugeot, Vauxhall and Volvo.
Here’s a breakdown of the major car makers and which ones sell models with manual handbrakes. Some 19 out of the 38 scrutinised offer vehicles only with electronic parking brakes
Chris Knapman, CarGurus’ UK editorial director, says: ‘As with many examples of automotive technology, the electronic parking brake started out as a luxury feature before slowly becoming more mainstream.
‘By 2019, when CarGurus first started tracking how the electronic parking brake was taking over from the more traditional handbrake, the technology had already made its way into 70 per cent of new cars.
‘Over the subsequent five years, its popularity has continued to grow, and it is now standard equipment on almost every new car on sale.’
How does it work? Manual handbrake VS electronic parking brake
MANUAL HANDBRAKE
A lever-operated manual handbrake might seem much more basic in comparison to its electronic equivalent, but the principle of how it works is the same in that it clamps the brakes on a car’s rear axle to prevent the wheels from moving.
This is achieved via a piston within the brake calliper that pushes a brake pad on to the brake disc (or drum).
In a car with a manual handbrake, the piston is operated via a physical cable that runs from the rear brakes to the handbrake lever.
As the brake pads wear and the handbrake cable stretches, a manual parking brake might need to be adjusted to maintain its full effectiveness.
Benefits:
- typically lower repair costs if it goes wrong
- more tactile feel
- more control of the car once mastered
ELECTRONIC PARKING BRAKE
With an electronic parking brake, the piston that clamps the brake disc is operated via a switch that replaces the traditional mechanical lever.
This switch electronically activates (no cables required) a pair of small motors which causes the rear brake pads to move and either clamp or release the brakes.
Due to the way it works, an electronic parking brake self adjusts and so requires less maintenance, but it is potentially more expensive to repair in the event it goes wrong.
Benefits:
- requires less physical effort to operate (most will disengage automatically when you pull away, and engage automatically when you switch off the car)
- doesn’t need adjusting over time like a traditional manual handbrake
- enables a hill hold function to stop the car from rolling backwards when conducting a hill start
- helps to declutter a car’s interior because it takes up less space than a manual handbrake
Source: CarGurus
