not necessarily.

the latest Honda 1.5 L15B7 engine would happily disagree. peak torque at 1700 RPM with a CVT that very intelligently anticipates and maintains above 2 to even 3k RPM when you need it (braking, cornering, both up and downhills)
definitely utilizing the car's ESP/VSC systems' sensors to get data fed into the TCU (and ECU)

Yeah, and I'm telling you modern cars are getting smarter to compensate the lack of driver capability.

Just step on the accelerator pedal it just goes without lugging.

Auto downshift auto RPM spike auto full spool turbo ready to go effortlessly.

Hell, if that's not enough, there's always the S gear on the lever.
Civic FE e spec have no pedal shifts and never at any point of time i ever felt the need of pedal shifter.

This is coming from a hardcore die hard manual enthusiast. And i think that means something.

Why don't you shift the question as an answer?
CVT.

F1 had CVT and was banned. Why?

CVT took out the gearing equation that many were still struggling.

It was so good and boring that, Honda introduced fake shifts to spice things up. Totally unnecessary. But not everyone in the market understands and demands utmost efficiency.

I'd go a stretch and claim, Proton post Geely punch is so good that I've never ever felt the need for pedal shifters. The era of Preve / Suprima where they actually offered pedal Shifters were so bad, i went with manual Inspira and never looked back over 10 years ago. Manual is the way to go for me and if it isn't manual, the next best thing is whatever that's efficient and convenient that my manual doesn't offer. (And currently, latest Honda CVT drive train is a clear winner to me, with Proton punch a close second)

Got Karak highway and Sepang if your machine is really capable.

No need green hell.

Can't help you there bro
Nürburgring is too far fetched to me and definitely not something accessible on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.

I am also not interested in sims with the sole reason that there's no rig capable of properly simulating a manual shifting sensation, both gear shifting and/or clutch actuation, either that or those that are capable are out of my financial capability.

My point still stands that modern CVT today are good enough to not necessitate pedal Shifters or lock ratios.
That's just the direction moving forward similarly to how hybrids and EV can be very capable sportingly despite most of them don't even have a gearbox via KERS/brake regen/electric motors output modulations.
Hell, i personally don't like that direction either especially how they are doing away with manual gears and to an extent sports cars.

And coming back to this topic anyways - the Civic FC is definitely not as smart or efficient as the FE but it isn't completely junk and if you still cannot deal with it, there's always manual controls via pedal Shifters and locking the CVT ratios

This post has been edited by Quazacolt: Dec 15 2023, 05:46 PM