Manual shifting is neither possible nor even relevant in electric cars or cvt (continuous variable transmission) cars.
Their rise will be the true end of the stick shift.
Their rise will be the true end of the stick shift.
[1] http://www.fiaformulae.com/en/news/2015/november/boxing-clev...
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/FormulaE/comments/2gbika/why_do_for...
None of that probably matters for road cars. I'm using a car sharing service's single gear electric cars. They have great acceleration and are easy to drive. Better than automatic transmission cars.
Now there are cars with no transmission and cars with 4 or 5 forward gears. The engines are slightly different to compensate.
[1] http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1081736_fake-shifting-fo...
When cost is no object (eg: racing) you see transmissions so they can get peak power for longer.
Even in a application that I was involved in where power was ~$200/Watt, fixed gearing was chosen as the extra weight of the transmission made the whole system less efficient than what was gained by the transmission.
[0]: http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl... (Its for Irrigation pumps, but still in the same class of power output as cars)
Initial models of the Tesla Roadster used a transmission with two gears because the motor wasn't flexible enough when direct driven.
And the final model continued to use a final gear reduction.
But as electric cars become more common, they will need to be able to handle all types of driving, including steep slopes, which is a very common reason to stay in a lower gear. There will be demand for such a function, even if not in every vehicle.
There's no need to add a transmission for this: many electric cars automatically apply regenerative braking when you let up on the accelerator, which provides similar benefits. It actually provides a really similar feel to driving a manual in low gear already.