The new Land Rover Discovery Sport will turn to a 9-speed gearbox to help boost mileage.

While the wider user of turbocharging and direct injection have been credited with boosting U.S. fuel economy to record levels, automakers are also scoring big mileage gains by turning to advanced transmissions, according to a new report by the Environmental Protection Agency.

New automatics using seven, eight and even nine gears are quickly becoming the norm, rather than the exception, along with even more exotic technologies such as double-clutch transmissions. While it’s not a hard-and-fast rule, the more gears the more the MPGs.

But the latest trends are likely not to be good news for fans of manual gearboxes which no longer can claim to deliver both better mileage and improved performance, noted Aaron Hula during a presentation on vehicle trends at the EPA vehicle test lab in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The latest EPA study found that fuel economy benefits of manual and automatic transmissions are roughly equal, Hula said.

The study showed that carmakers have preferred to invest in new automatic transmissions, with manuals steadily fading from use as consumers have cut back on demand, even though there are also new 7-speed designs being offered in products such as the Porsche 911.

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Which route to follow has been a subject of much debate between proponents of conventional automatics, double-clutch designs and Continuously Variable Transmissions, or CVTs.

About 19.5% of all new vehicles sold in the U.S. during the 2014 model year have been equipped with CVTs. Significantly, Nissan, one of the companies most heavily committed to this type of gearbox, also posted the biggest gain in fuel economy last year, according to the EPA.

(Fuel economy hit record last year but gains are slowing, says EPA. Click Here for the story.)

The EPA report noted that in the early 1980s, 3-speed automatics, both with  and without lockup torque converters, were the most popular transmissions, but by 1985, the 4-speed automatic with lockup became the industry’s top choice, a position it would hold for the next quarter-century. Over 80% of all new vehicles produced in MY 1999 were equipped with so-called L4 transmissions, the EPA noted.

But then, as it became clear that federal regulators were set to sharply raise mileage standards, 4-speed automatics began to lose momentum in favor of new 5- and 6-speed designs.  Manual transmissions also started to slip in demand, though not necessarily because of fuel economy requirements but, rather, shifting consumer trends.

Production of 5-speed and 6-speed automatics combined passed the production of  4-speed transmissions in model year 2007.

Six-speed automatics are projected to be installed in over 60% of new vehicles produced in model-year 2014, and the percentage is still trending upwards, Hula said, even though still more advanced alternatives are starting to become popular.

Makers as diverse as Chrysler and Land Rover are now turning to 9-speed transmissions, and General Motors and Ford are working up a 10-speed design

Meanwhile, manual transmissions are now found in only about 4% of the vehicles sold in the U.S., according to the EPA, and almost exclusively in small cars and sports cars. Even there, the trend is shifting away from the classic stick shift. Ferrari, for example, no longer offers a single manual in its line-up.

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Toyota’s luxury brand Lexus also has dropped manual transmissions completely from all of its 2015 models, even the new high-performance RC F coupe. The cost of keeping sticks in the lineup had become prohibitive, according to a senior Lexus engineer, who was in on the decision.

A ballyhooed comeback of the manual transmission appears to have been undercut by the rising demand for compact crossovers and sport utility vehicles, which are popular with younger buyers who often have never driven a stick and show no interest in learning.