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Can’t Wait for Manuals in EVs? They May Be Coming Sooner Than You Think
The fact that the idea of manual transmissions for electric vehicles is even a thing is moderately surprising: It seems like the answer to a question nobody is asking. But apparently someone is, and manufacturers, especially those hailing from Japan, are answering with full manual transmissions, fake clutch and all.
There’s a precedent for this. If you think back to the 1980s, most of Japan’s motorcycle companies recognized that American loyalty to Harley Davidson just wasn’t waning—despite the allure of the silky-smooth engines from Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, and Yamaha—and they knew they had to take action.
So they all pursued the less silky-smooth V-twin market that Harley owned. It’s not hard to imagine the conversations product planners had with the engineers: “No, it needs to vibrate more and make the correct noise! You’re building it all wrong!”
You’d walk into, say, a Yamaha showroom, and there it was: the 1981 Virago 750 V-twin, parked next to a silky-smooth Seca XJ750 with the inline four-cylinder engine. (Both bikes were nicely done, but like an idiot, I bought a Yamaha XS650 Heritage Special with the vertical twin, left over from when Yamaha was copying Triumph and BSA instead of Harley. You want noise and vibration? Right here.)
Decades later, what we’re talking about is a full manual-transmission sensation, complete with a fake clutch pedal and the ability to actually “stall” the car if you don’t fake-shift properly. This differs from the arrangement that is already available in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, which uses paddle shifters to simulate an eight-speed transmission. It’s accompanied by piped-in noise from eight speakers, which Forbes says is a “Shelby-like guttural growl” that caused the writer “to giggle just a bit at the delightful engine sounds.”
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In the race to get a manual-transmission vehicle into production, it would appear that Toyota is the farthest down that road. In 2023, the company invited some automotive writers to Japan to drive a Lexus UX300e, the production version of which Lexus advertises as “creating a uniquely smooth and quiet experience.” But this particular UX300e had been fitted with a clutch and a six-speed manual transmission instead of the usual one-speed found, quite reasonably, in most electric vehicles.
The “noise,” incidentally, was supplied by a recording of a gas-powered Volkswagen Golf. The clutch pedal was only there for show: You could shift gears at full speed without it. Keep the clutch pedal pressed in, though, and the vehicle would eventually slow to a stop.
Reviews of the manual UX300e were interesting. “To give due credit, the idea of the manual EV felt much less silly after we had experienced it,” said Car and Driver. The headline on the Motor Trend story was “We Tried Toyota’s Fake Manual Transmission for EVs. Is It Awesome?” That publication said a manual in an electric car “strikes us as both a fun party trick to show your pals and a useful tool to transform a car from faithful weekday commuter to fun back-road blaster or autocross champ on the weekends. Sign us up.” And Road & Track said, “You’re out of free articles. Join now.” Oh, sorry.
As for Honda, that’s interesting, too: In 2022, Honda’s “head of electrification,” Shinji Aoyama, was interviewed by C&D. When asked about manuals in electric vehicles, the story said, “He personally does not like the idea of an artificial solution like this and said that Honda would pursue other ways of making its EVs fun to drive.”
Then last October, it was confirmed that Honda had already developed a manual transmission for electric vehicles, which evidently impressed Motor Authority even before it was available to drive: “A manual transmission like the one Honda has developed will make driving an EV much more fun, meaning it can deliver an extra layer of emotion, just like in a conventional manual-equipped car.”
And, don’t forget the Germans: In 2023, BMW M CEO Franciscus Van Meel told the Australian website whichcar.com that a solution for making electric vehicles appealing to enthusiasts “might be to simulate gears or to have another acoustic feedback, or even vibrations as a feedback.”
American companies are in on it, too: Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford Global Technologies is also interested in the fake, err, simulation technology, filing a very real patent application in late 2023 for a “SHIFTER ASSEMBLY FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLE” which, reading through the application, seems to consist largely of “a plurality of wires.” As for the “why?,” the patent application says that “electric vehicles lack [the] operator-to-vehicle physical feedback that is advantageous in conventional motor vehicles.” The patent was published on March 20, meaning that it has been received and is under review.
No need for Ford to patent piped-in sound, because you can already equip a Mustang Mach-E with a 300-watt Borla Active Performance Sound system, which pipes in “professional recordings” of V-8-powered cars that have Borla exhausts. Those sounds include “idle, ramps to redline, cruising, throttle lifts, ‘burbles & pops’ and more,” Borla says, thus adding “a cherished layer of sensory awareness to driving enthusiasts.”
From all indications, it looks like Toyota will be the first out of the gate with a manual-transmission electric vehicle. Two years ago, in a presentation titled “Let’s Change the Future of Cars,” Toyota Battery Electric Vehicle head Takero Kato said he would indeed change the future of cars with developments like “The manual EV. We will deliver exciting surprises and fun to our customers with technologies achievable only by a carmaker.” This supposedly happens in 2026, unless that’s a fake date, too.
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As of yet i fail to understand why EVs don’t have transmissions. Would not a battery last longer if the drain on it was reduced while still maintaining speed? I seem to remember earlier conversions to electric maintained the original transmission. Albeit automatic.