At my previous job at a different site, I wrote what some would consider a hot take: That Porsche should just cancel its upcoming electric 718 successor.
I argued that there isn’t really a market for an electric 718, which was already the lowest-volume gas-powered vehicle in Porsche’s lineup. I also pointed out that it would be more expensive than the outgoing car, pushing most potential buyers away.
In that article, I also pointed out one way the electric 718 could be successful: If it used a fake gearshifting feature like the one found on the Ioniq 5 N and the Ioniq 6 N. Porsche was staunchly against this idea in 2024, but now, five months after my article was published, the company is finally starting to see the light. Coincidence? I think not!
Let’s Break This Down Into a Timeline
In August 2024, senior Porsche development driver Lars Kern laid out the company’s plans simply: It wouldn’t use fake shifter tech in its EVs. From Drive.com.au:
Speaking to Australian media, Porsche development driver Lars Kern said the German brand is monitoring competitors in the sporty electric vehicle (EV) space, but did not see the need to adopt a fake shifter akin to the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N.
“Obviously, we look into what the competition does, but our perspective on this is always why should we make something worse?” he said.
“I mean because, in like just how it translates power or how power is applied? The electric engine is better than an ICE [internal combustion engine], so we figured there’s no reason to simulate what has been in the past.
This, in my opinion, is the wrong attitude to have with regard to fake shifters. Sure, adding synthetic shift points and made-up gear ratios will certainly be slower than leaving an EV to accelerate linearly. But by now, I think most enthusiasts agree that faster doesn’t equal more fun. Electric cars have commoditized strong acceleration, so speed alone is no longer a consideration for buyers. They just want a car that makes them feel something.
The Switch-Up We’ve All Been Waiting For
A year later, Porsche changed its tune. The company revealed back in August that it had developed an electric Cayenne prototype with fake gearshifts, signaling a change within the company and renewing hope that the tech might make it to the 718. Now, there’s even more indication from the brand that the 718 will receive the gearshifts it deserves. From Drive.com.au:
Frank Moser, the vice president of the Porsche 718 and 911 two-door model lines, said he has driven the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N “several times”, claiming it was an “eye-opening” vehicle for the brand.
“We learnt a lot from that [Ioniq 5 N]. I drove it several times. They made it really, really good,” Moser said in an interview with Australian media at the 2025 Icons of Porsche festival in Dubai, UAE.
[…]
When asked if Porsche had taken learnings from the Ioniq 5 N’s virtual sounds and gear changes, Moser said “this is the way”, but stressed drivers should be able to turn it on or off.
“The customer could decide if he wants to drive in complete silent mode, or he wants to be part of the game, feeling the virtual sounds of a flat six and the virtual gear shifts.
“That would be the direction for the future.”
So in just over a year, Porsche has done a complete 180 on its opinion of fake gearshifts, and now plans to have them in its upcoming EVs. It’s probably just a coincidence that this switch-up occurred five months after I published my take, but I’d like to think my constant blabbering about Hyundai’s shifter tech had at least a little bit of influence.
I figure it’s only a matter of time before most performance-oriented EVs have this sort of tech onboard. The market for electric supercars isn’t exactly strong, since electric powertrains can’t evoke the same sort of thrill and emotion as a great ICE setup. So being able to replicate that thrill is crucial to attracting buyers. Besides, most things in new cars are digital these days, even if there’s a gas-powered engine under the hood. Fake engine sounds through the sound system, 20-mode traction control systems, anti-stall tech, the list goes on. So long as it feels real and creates joy, that’s what matters.
Top graphic images: Porsche; Hyundai
I’m sure it costs money to develop the software but once you do it’s there with no hardware costs so you might as well do it and then you can apply it to whatever EVs you want and it can be a selectable mode so those that want it have it and those don’t don’t. Seems like an obvious win win.
Two weeks ago I was invited to the NA Porsche headquarters for an event that was basically a shortened version of the Porsche experience you can pay lots of dollars to enjoy but this one was complimentary and they even fed me and my wife a decent lunch from their restaurant overlooking the track and the airport. It was a lot of fun.
We got to drive the Taycan, a few variations of 911 (including the new hybrid), a Boxster GTS etc. both on track and there was a launch control leading into an autocross course.
The thing I noted as I drove the Taycan is that my brain had a really hard time dealing with the lack of sensory input combined with raw acceleration. It made me dizzy and I had to stop for a bit. The launch control actually had me losing peripheral vision like what fighter pilots describe when they’re about to black out. It is a bit insane and I do attribute some of this to getting older and my inner ear fluid isn’t as fluid as it used to be. I get the same thing if I ride too many rollercoasters now too. Getting older sucks and I highly recommend avoiding it though I suppose it’s better than the obvious alternative.
All this to say that if these fake shift points and sounds give me some sort of feedback to avoid all this then I might be able to live with it. I’d at least give it a shot to see what it’s like. But damn, I’d probably just take that 911 GTS they had instead anyway.
I’ve driven the Ioniq 5N.
Are the simulated gearshifts comparable to a manual? Of course not.
…but does it add meaningful engagement? Yes. Absolutely, yes.
It’s like dual clutches. I respected them, but never really liked them. Manual, please!
Well, I have a Spyder RS now and it’s the first dual clutch I “don’t hate.” The manual-like shifter, that goes in the right direction, and feels like a short-throw sequential is… fine. It adds meaningful engagement. I still want a manual, but again, I don’t hate the PDK-S.
Simulated gearshifts is a great example of not letting perfect be the enemy of good. Sometimes you just need to take little incremental steps. In time, enough of those steps, in aggregate, will eventually add up to meaningful progress.
Humans are creatures of habit. It’s all psychology. The way to bridge the gap between one technology and the other is to simulate the experience of one with the other. In a generation or two, way fewer people are going to care about the vroom vroom. I personally love the sound my straight six E30 makes, but standards and tastes change. If anything, adding this tech to electric cars is only going to help preserve the best aspects of ice cars with fewer of the costs. What’s so bad about that?
This is also not an either/or scenario. Adding this for the benefit of those who care, doesn’t mean you’re going to lose your ice car or be forced to buy into it. Lots of silly taking-ourselves-way-too-seriously-over-here positions on the subject. Lighten up!
Fake sounds and fake shifts are the modern equivalent of that very early car that had a fake horse head attached to it.
https://www.wired.com/2015/02/well-didnt-work-1899-car-full-size-wooden-horse-head-stuck-front/
Yes and no – that article indicates the purpose of the Horsey Horseless was to prevent other horses (which were still drawing carriages) from being scared of motor vehicles. Fake shifts, on the other hand, are about helping the human adapt by offering them a sense of normalcy.
Looking at it logically, fake shifts (and fake engine noise) are silly and unnecessary. But humans aren’t strictly logical creatures, and culture change occurs gradually, not by jerking the wheel (so to speak).
I just want to be able to turn off the fake sounds. Fake shift points are dumb for me.
I wouldn’t even say as long as it feels “real” but as long as it feels good.
Manual and gearboxes are no more real than synthetic sounds. Both are artificially constructed difficulties to make the end result more fun for the user, it’s just in one case the artifice happens in the design intent while in the other it happens in a circuit board. Someone made the decision to put those shift points there, to balance the torque curve in such and such way. A car doesn’t need a manual transmission and the desire for one is a matter of taste. Synthetic engine noise or shift points could feel just as good if they were designed to be. Cars can be fun, why not have a “10 speed” e-gearbox that you can shift like a fast and furious film? Why not have a customizable response curve that you can switch day to day?
Life’s too short to pretend one type of artifice is somehow more pure than another. We aren’t french, no reason to champagne this.
Didn’t Toyota just show what they should be doing for their EV sports car?
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/1983-toyota-corolla-gts-ae86-electric-car-manual-transmission-first-drive-review
I can believe that make-believe shifts and fake exhaust sounds pumped through speakers is accepted by the normies who buy new normie cars, but I’m having a hard time accepting that they are being championed by an enthusiast website like this one.
It’s fakery and poseury at its worst, especially from Porsche.
The tragedy is that there is a legitimate case for gear shifts in an electric car if you have multiple motors or a motor with configurations where you can switch between series/parallel or wye/delta. A functional two-speed transmission, without a physical transmission present: THAT is a valid case for “gear” shifting in an EV and one which enhances performance, but they give us this fake crap instead.
And they’re once again making the car look overly aggressive at the expense of aerodynamic efficiency: it is the latter that allows you to get good range on a small battery, keeping weight down. There’s really no excuse why they can’t make a sub-3,000 lb EV with at least 200 miles highway range without resorting to exotic materials.
Right, and I think Hyundai has been working in that space with motors that are wound for like 6 or 9 phases, which get reconfigured between wye/delta and to 3-phase depending on motor speed.
The older SkyTrain cars in Vancouver sounded and felt like they had automatic transmissions because their rudimentary power electronics made them lurch between several phasings as they pulled away from the station.
I thought the same way until I drove an EV with a system like this. While it doesn’t match the sensation of a real gas-powered car, it comes close, and makes the EV experience way better for enthusiasts who love feedback from what they’re driving.
I hate fake external exhaust sounds, but fake shift points are not the worst thing in the world. If you’re used to ICE cars it helps give you an audible frame of reference for how fast you’re going/what the car’s doing, and generally helps to add a little extra flavor to an otherwise fairly boring driving experience. Plus, if you’re able to select whether you want them enabled or not, I don’t see the issue. Just give people the option.
A manual transmission itself is a form of fakery.
???
Makes me think of the old Far Side cartoon: “Bobby, jiggle Grandpa’s rat so it looks alive, please.”
Why stop at virtual gearshifts?
I would say they need to ad some driver involvment by simulating coal shoveling and minutes of boiler pressure building. Complete with a wiff of carcinogenics through the hvac.
Or if that is to new for your taste. How about a touchscreen based whip to hurry your draft animals, accompanied by a Porsche branded manure distribution system to stain your shoes.
Manure only available from Porsche Marking department.
Fake gearshifts won’t save the electric 718. The lack of ICE on the lower-end cars is the problem, not the lack of a shifter. Few people are interested in EV sports cars.The fact that they are saying there will be ICE versions for the higher-spec cars shows they have figured it out – but is it too late?
This is the way.
(actually, this is stupid, the way to keep sounds and gear changes in sports cars is to build them with gas engines and multispeed transmissions)
I still don’t see why we can’t have both. You can just bolt an electric motor to a flywheel and a clutch and throw on a manual. Its not a hardware issue, its a software issue. Program the motor controller to have a power curve, and make it more like a gas engine in power delivery. Its more parts, but smaller motors, and les re design of the whole drivetrain of the car. battery where fuel tank, motor where engine. I don’t know why this is so hard.
You still have to convince people to buy it.
I think this just drives home to me that there’s no reason to build any EV sports cars, at least not as things stand currently.
Using an EV powertrain makes everything that appeals to me about sports cars worse. You don’t get the fun sounds. You don’t get the driver engagement of shifting and wringing out an engine. Weight goes up so handling suffers.
Are they quicker? Sure, but EV sedans and trucks can be just as quick, and it’s just a party trick. Maybe they’d be faster around a track while the battery lasts, but that sounds a lot less fun than a slower lap in a Miata.
The environmental perspective is critical, but as long as you can pick up a V6 Pilot to drive 15k miles a year and idle in the school drop off line, a handful of Porsche EV’s getting driven on nice weekends won’t make a difference.
I know a lot of this is driven by regulation for Europe, where at some point the only sports car you can buy will have to be an EV, but I even question the sense in that, because again, this is such a small percentage of cars on the road.
When you have to add in software video game trickery to bring back engagement you’re just building it wrong from the get-go.