Toyota patents first manual transmission for electric vehicles

Japanese company Toyota has decided to surprise future buyers of electric cars by filing a patent application for a manual gearbox with a clutch for electric vehicles. cars. This may initially be confusing, because anyone who is at least a little familiar with the operating principle of an electric motor understands that an electric car does not need any transmission. However, the company has its own vision on this matter.


In today's market electric vehicles There is no gearbox as such. Tesla cars do not have a transmission, in fact, only a 1-speed gearbox is implemented. Porsche and Audi use 2-speed gearboxes for better response at higher speeds and increased performance on German autobahns. But with the exception of these two EVs, transmissions do not really belong in modern electric cars.



Toyota plans to "turn the game". In its patent application, the company actually created a traditional manual transmission, which is driven by the already familiar clutch and gear lever. Toyota describes the mechanism as follows: "The EV controller is configured to control the torque of an electric motor using a manual transmission model."

At first glance, everything is fine until you delve into the details. In fact, Toyota plans to equip some electric vehicles with pseudo-transmissions. This means that the gearbox will not actually shift anything in the traditional sense of the word. It is not required for the correct operation of the car and is created more for the entertainment of the driver.

According to the patent, electric cars with a pseudo-transmission will receive a so-called force generator that will give feedback with each “gear change”. Thus, the driver will be able to get all the benefits of powerful electric propulsion, while not parting with the feeling of instant feedback of a manual transmission.



Of course, such entertainment will not be installed on all Toyota cars, since the “trick” is quite niche and created solely for entertainment purposes. It will be quite possible to go without switching virtual gears. It is likely that the option will affect the price of electric cars not in the best direction for the buyer, so buyers will have to think carefully whether they will use this "attraction" or not.