Manual transmissions, wooooo, amirite? Yes, we all love to “row our own,” as they say, feel one with the machine, all that fun stuff. But manuals have become increasingly rare in the name of pure performance and declining offerings– just this morning, Thomas reported the Mazda 3 is the last stick-equipped economy car – and in the case of electric vehicles, there isn’t a need for changeable ratios at all, whether selected by a hand-stirred stick, a microprocessor firing solenoids, or the ol’ slush system.
But some people, a lot of you reading this now, I imagine, would like a manual shifter. Would you settle for a simulated manual? Not merely a “stick shift” form factor for selecting gears in an automatic transmission, but a stick that truly feels as if it’s tugging linkages and sliding synchros and all that?
Porsche has applied for a patent for just such a system, which you can view here. As the application states (per the patent site’s own German-to-English translation feature),
[F]ully automatic control of motor vehicles is not desired by every driver, because it makes individual intervention by the driver more difficult or avoids it, which is still preferred by some drivers.
Accordingly, there is a desire for the remanualization of motor vehicles in order to be able to perform certain functionalities manually again, such as the manual operation of the automatic transmission as a manual gearbox and/or the sequential shifting of the automatic transmission, whereby the motor vehicle may also only have an electric motor as a drive motor, whereby the shifting of the manual transmission or an automatic transmission is simulated.
…
An electronically controlled clutch pedal may also be provided to emulate the clutch actuation in an emulated manual transmission.
[Editor’s Note: The word “remanualization” kind of gave me some hives when I read it. They really have a knack for taking something potentially fun and making it all corporate-clinical. Ew. – JT]
So, we’re talking about a shifter that can be moved to choose gears like a conventional gearbox, or a sequential setup, or a full auto. Nothing too groundbreaking there – or patentable, I would think, though a phony clutch is interesting, if silly. But that’s not the meat of the idea Porsche wants to patent:
[I]t is also desirable if the hand-operated actuator is suitable for control in order to give the operator or driver of the motor vehicle a realistic experience of shifting a manual transmission or an automatic transmission.
This also includes the fact that the operating lever of the hand-operated actuator experiences realistically increasing resistance forces towards its end positions, which the driver must overcome when moving the operating lever.The task is to create a hand-operated actuator equipped with an actuating lever and realistically operable to generate a realistic shifting experience.
“Realistically increasing resistance forces towards its end positions, which the driver must overcome when moving the operating lever,” that’s force-feedback meant to make it feel like the shifter is actually doing something mechanical and not just bumping into switches. Maybe there could even be a knob you twist incrementally to go from full snick-snick to maximum notchy (who am I kidding, it would be a screen slider). At any rate, the words do a much better job than the patent art, which is giving “science fair” more than “high technology.” But that’s fine. The drawing isn’t for marketing, it’s for patenting.
As the application explains, springs return the stick to a fixed resting position, with a powered actuator (labeled 10 in the image above) providing the resistance to stick movement in appropriate amounts for accurate simulation. The actuator could be magnetorheological, electromagnetic, or motorized. The application goes on to explain that capacitors could power the system, “[allowing] a defined amount of current to be stored and retrieved briefly, in order to allow higher forces from the actuator on the operating lever.” Porsche seems to really want that lever to have some oomph, further explaining, “It is also advantageous if the current control circuit includes at least one boost converter … so that a higher electrical energy can be stored and quickly released again to allow for short periods of higher forces from the actuator on the actuating lever.”
There’s more. The patent application envisions a touch- and perhaps even camera-based sensor system to detect when the driver’s hand reaches for the shift knob, signaling an impending shift. If a phony clutch pedal is provided, it too could be sensor-equipped. Left foot twitching? Get ready to fire off those capacitors.
It’s all fascinating, and I can’t help but think of the guys who put thousands of dollars into e-racing rigs. In the future, the ultimate driving experience may be a car simulator that’s actually a car.
What a weird time to be a car person.
Top graphic image: Porsche
The death throes of a brand that’s seeing its competitive edge hollowed out.
God forbid they ever recreate the shifting in my 914.
As a former 914 owner I feel that pain.
NO.
if you want/like/have a manual, get/drive/drive a MT.
This stuff is all just crazy. There exist a myriad of use cases for everything OK yes.
But if you like/understand/enjoy mechanical connections, linkages, and connectedness, then real MT are the only option IMO. I’ve driven tons of paddle/semi auto/”manual” equipped auto vehicles and I never used those features for more than a minute, just to see. Ditto fly by wire. Just not my thing. I love driving for real.
edit PS- now I feel old…
Would I settle for a simulated manual?
YES!
If it was for a Manual-transmission Plug-in Hybrid which completely disconnected the manual from the wheels when in electric-only mode, but did it’s best to make the overall experience of driving that car (while in electric-only mode) as similar to gas-mode as possible, for safety’s sake, and to ensure that the driver doesn’t develop bad habits while driving in electric-only mode.
Parsche needs to hook up with Dadge and got their virtual manual and virtual engine noise things going together. Imagine the virtualosity they could achieve.
All other things equal I would almost always choose a stick over an automatic. But for whatever reason I’ve never found any engagement or enjoyment in automatics with “manual” shifting controls – not auto-sticks, not paddles. I just don’t use them because why bother? The car will do its thing without me, and probably better without my intervention.
I appreciate the effort here, but I feel like this is going to fall into the some “uncanny valley” between that feeling and knowing that what I’m doing has no real effect on the car.
Yes, we all love to “row our own,”
Not all of us. I don’t hate them or anything. I was fine with it when they were the more performant or more efficient option… but I don’t have any particular love of shifting and wouldn’t bother with a manual if the automatic (or even total lack of transmission) is better. I definitely wouldn’t bother with fake shifting. Transmissions in general are just a complexity-and-friction-inducing compromise to work around engines that can’t handle the needed range of operation without help. And fake shifting is replicating the compromises with no upside.
Meh, seems like a dumb gimmick. I don’t want “fake” stuff in or on the car whether it’s shifts, engine noises, whatever.
No.
I want to make the mistakes and get better at it. I want to be the driver choosing what I think are the proper gears at proper times. I want to learn what sounds my car is making and whether they are good sounds or not.
Honestly, what do people not understand about this? Cuz driving is not that difficult. Getting better at it, though can be. And my making it more fun for me is all I want.
Instead, I have a new car (old car was sent upstate to a farm where it could roam free) that literally and physically keeps me in my lane, which I hate. I have to fight it via the steering wheel sometimes. Oh, and if I accidentally put my hand on my face, it beeps at me. Thanks, nanny.
I stopped in my tracks at remanualization. I love how everyone else has well. How fucking stoopid is all of this?
My version of remanualization is to buy an old geo metro. I am so damn disappointed in the car industry nowadays besides for Slate and the GR corolla. Maybe I could add a few more on that list. But either way, bye bye new cars. I hardly knew ya.
remanualization is a very weird word. It’s yet another case of taking away or threatening to take away something that has been stable for decades and then acting like you’re a hero when you change your mind and bring it back.
It’s a strange word, especially since it’s redundant here. I find the weird hedging of “certain functionalities” followed by the description of shifting an automatic or electric vehicle to be strange, too. I do think some of the issue is translation of a dry technical document and the tendency of German to construct words for whatever meaning they need, but it seems like they are restating the same intent multiple times where one clear explanation would do.
But I am not fluent in German, so this may actually be more or less strange in German than it feels in English.
So will the shift lever be an icon on the touchscreen? Maybe haptic so you just wave your hand in the air as if you are speaking Italian?
I, for one, am in support of any innovation that makes a Porsche more expensive.
I’m not interested in a fake manual transmission. Aside from enjoyment, the whole other point of driving one is to have full control over your car, and this isn’t that.
Agreed. It’s the clutch that makes a manual superior for control.
The first thing you do when you run out of talent is push the clutch down so your throttle inputs (or lack thereof) no longer affect which end of the car is sliding. Not having this option puts me off trying to hoon an EV, which then makes driving an EV boring (other than the literally sickening acceleration).
Some autos give you the option of hitting neutral, but usually not in a way that is instant muscle memory in a situation where, say, you were drifting neatly round a roundabout but now you’re heading for the kerb and you’ve just remembered this roundabout happens to be on a bridge over the main road north east out of London and you are definitely going to die. For example.
It’s kind of hard to justify needing a clutch/neutral to mitigate for driving like a twat, which is part of the problem.
I think it is essential in winter conditions where even sensible driving can lead to surprises that the left foot can mitigate faster than trying to find neutral.