Toyota patents manual transmission with clutch for EVs

11 February 2022

Toyota has filed for a patent involving manual transmission (with a clutch pedal no less) for EVs. That's an interesting development for sure, let's just say right out of the gate that attempting to patent something doesn't necessarily and automatically mean you're going to make that. But it's clear that someone at Toyota has at least thought long and hard about the possibility.

Basically, the idea is that Toyota would fit a special controller that alters the torque of the electric motor(s) in your EV in order to seem more ICE-like in the driving feel. This includes a "pseudo-clutch pedal", and a "pseudo-shifter". The "pseudo" wording there most probably implies that while these will be real objects in your car, and you'll be able to press the pedal and change gears with the shifter, well - they're not really connected to anything other than the aforementioned special controller.

This will control the torque of the electric motor "using the MT vehicle model based on the operation amount of accelerator pedal, the operation amount of the pseudo-clutch pedal and the shift position of the pseudo-shifter".

The controller is "configured to store shift reaction force characteristic simulating the characteristic of the shift reaction force according to the operation of the shifter. Then, the controller is configured to control the shift reaction force output by the shift reaction force generator according to the operation of the pseudo-shifter using the stored shift reaction force characteristic".

So think of the "pseudo-shifter" as a joystick with force feedback. It will move and each "gear" you change into will ever so slightly alter the torque thus the driving feel with it. It would really be interesting to see such a system in a real EV - just so we'd be able to test how it had turned out in the real world. It could be fun, or it could be a useless gimmick. Only time will tell, if Toyota ever decides to make this a thing.

Via