I recently had a revelation when my 2017 Mazda 6’s battery was dying, only the minimal systems were online. Despite the car having a stick shift, shifting felt clunky and the car felt like it was going to stall unless I gave it higher revs than usual when upshifting. The car would shutter when I turned too hard.

As soon as I replaced the battery, the car went back to normal. I had no idea how many electric systems were factoring into my every day experience, even with a manual transmission.