Some people think that electric cars are a bit boring, so Toyota engineers are working to integrate manual transmission into electric cars as a possible feature to attract different types of customers.
A manual transmission serves no purpose in an electric vehicle, but its purpose is to make the driver happier and give more control to the driving experience.
Despite Toyota’s longstanding reservations about electric cars, it plans a more powerful push into the sector as it tries to appeal to all kinds of consumers. So an unnecessary feature like “manual transmission” might be attractive to consumers who don’t want the smoothness and ease of driving electric cars.
Most of today’s gasoline-powered cars are equipped with automatic transmissions, and manual transmissions are rarely offered in performance cars or very cheap cars.
Most electric cars only have a single-speed transmission; Because its high-speed electric motors don’t need the extra help of various gears, Toyota plans to combine the transmission with sensors and a central computer programmed to mimic the feel of the car with a manual transmission, and the driver will get a clutch pedal in addition to the usual accelerator and brake pedals.
If the wrong gear is selected or the accelerator pedal is not pressed enough, the car will vibrate significantly, just like cars with manual transmissions, but the car’s computer will control the vibration in this case to avoid stress. On the battery.
The presence of this feature does not prevent the driver from using the car normally as the car has two driving modes, a manual mode and a normal electric car mode.
Some reports about the technology suggest that the cars will have fake engine sounds to accompany all shifting and acceleration actions, although the patent application doesn’t say so.
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