So far in this thread multiple people have brought up that the numbers reported by the car manufacturers themselves, for current model year cars, across a bunch of manufacturers, show that automatic transmission cars are more fuel efficient than manuals.

I see two explanations for this:

1) They're all lying

2) Technological progress has finally caught up to a system that is bounded by human skill and hand-foot-coordination.

(I'm betting on technology, are you betting on the human?)