Here's something from news of the weird:
Toyota’s latest engineering feat is an electric vehicle that behaves as if it has a stick shift, complete with revving sounds and faux gear shifts.
....The system generates fake sounds and simulated gear changes as well as genuine stalling if a rookie driver fumbles the controls, although the company is still debating whether to keep that last feature when it commercializes the technology, a spokeswoman said.
That's . . . interesting. Car companies barely sell any sticks on their conventional gasoline cars anymore, so why would EV drivers want one? “We want to be able to deliver a sense of ‘wow’ to customers,” explained Toyota's head of EV.
Whatever. But if Toyota's EV accelerates from 0-60 in 4 seconds, like a lot of EVs, even experienced stick shift drivers will have to be pretty fast on the clutch.
If anyone is the target customer for this, I am. I drove a stick for 15 years, and I didn't have a story about efficiency or performance or whatever--I liked it because it was fun.
And now I drive EVs, and have done for about seven years. I had occasion to drive a manual just the other day, and was reminded of how much fun it was.
And yet, I'd take a hard pass on this.
There's a big difference between "an automatic transmission could do this job better than I can, but I enjoy doing it and anyway this car doesn't have one" and "this car is going to a lot of extra trouble to pretend it's a manual when it isn't."
The former is eccentric, and the latter is just silly.
Also? I don't want the fake sounds. I love the icy quiet of my electric motors as I pop off the line way quicker than the gas people.
When I hear a gas motor roaring, it doesn't sound like power to me. What I hear is a primitive machine doing its little best, and struggling oh so very hard.
I haven't driven an EV, Laertes. Does it give you much control on downhill braking? With a stick or the paddle-shifters in my current car I can decide in which gear to take the downgrade. How do EV's do something like that? I know they use dynamic braking to recharge the batteries, which is great. But I like to choose a gear that gives me enough retardation that I only have to hit the actual wheel brakes infrequently, like at a sharper than normal curve.
Suggestions? Thanks.
I run mine in regenerative braking mode, so any time I take my foot off the gas it begins gently slowing, and charging the battery.
On the steering column, about where a paddle shifter might otherwise be, there's a paddle that applies still-stronger regenerative braking.
And then, next to the gas pedal is the friction brake, which works about like you'd expect.
In practice, I literally almost never use the friction brake. I think I probably use it now and then when parking, and that's about it. The passive regen braking and the extra regenerative braking from the paddle are enough to control my speed, even downhill.
I should note that I drive like a civilized person, which is a bit unusual. The median driver, tailgating as the median driver will, will somewhat frequently have to use the friction brake to evade the just consequences of their poor life decisions.
I have mine set to not have any regen on the accelerator, but instead add regen when I touch the brake before applying friction braking.
I use the mode switch to shift through levels of regen. The mode switch also changes the acceleration profile - Eco for wet surfaces (low accel, low regen), Sport for dry (high accel, mid regen on accel release, no regen on braking), and Custom for most situations (mid accel, high regen on braking, no regen on accel release).
Pressing the brake peddle still gives you regenerative braking, it only transitions to friction braking if you press hard for a stop that is faster than the regenerative braking can provide. Brake pads for electric cars had to be reformulated, as early Tesla's experienced issues with the bad pads decomposing from moisture because the brakes never get hot enough to dry out.
Most don't give you direct access to regen levels while going down hills, no.
The Chevy Bolt gives you two levels regen when you lift off the gas, each of which can be increased using the paddle on the steering column. My own preference is to use the lower setting on the freeway and the higher "one peddle" setting around town. Some of the newer electric cars allow you to adjust the amount of regenerative braking from 1 to 10. Newer Tesla's have no adjustable setting at all, you are stuck with the one Elon says is best for you.
I worry that "what Elon says is best for [me]" might become a Republican Party platform plank. Jes' sayin'
It depends on the car - both its general control philosophy and the ability of the ob-board charging systems to absorb the energy generated by hard braking. Just as the trend has been to move from manual->automatic transmissions, it seems the trend in EVs is to move to more automated systems with less user input.
Two of our EVs have aggressive regeneration that will maybe bring the car to a stop, but also jerks your head around (and non-drivers complain about). The newest one seems to adjust on the fly with lighter deceleration at speed and more aggressive as the car slows, so it will come to a complete stop without any brake input. Its actually really nice to drive.
Thanks, everyone. GrumpyPDXDad, how does the newer car know WHERE to come to a complete stop without any brake input"? Does it "see" a stop sign or light?
I gather it's impossible to "coast" down a mild hill with no retardation other than the wind and road friction.
No no, this isn't a self-driving thing. Once you take your foot (all of most of the way) off the accelerator pedal the regenerative braking starts to kick in.
What GPDXD is saying that some of their EVs just back off the braking a tiny bit when the car's almost stopped so the stop is nice and smooth, it's not looking at the world around it at all.
I'm a bit jealous. I have to do that by just pressing the accelerator slightly when pulling up - but in either case, it's still 100% the driver pulling the car up at the desired location.
I can do it better than an automatic - automatics are only better than the median bored driver.
I prefer driving a stick, but the new 8 or 10 speed automatics will give you better milage and quicker acceleration than a manual transmission can provide. My IC car has an 8 speed ZF automatic. You have the option of shifting manually using flappy paddles but I really don't see the point. It doesn't represent the same visceral challenge that coordinating gas, clutch and shifter does, only the feeling you are getting in the way of the computer doing its job.
Yes, the paddle shifter is for curvy roads in hilly country. That's where they shine! Trying to outthink the auto on city streets is a fool's errand.
Amen! I'm in the same boat as you and couldn't agree more.
Only note is that I also bike a lot, and for that I do prefer EVs that make some noise. That "icy silence" means I can't hear a car coming up behind me.
Bingo! This falls under the category of making driving fun. (Sez owner of ‘87 Mazda pickup with stick who drive it until a year ago when it finally failed the emissions test.)
I miss stick shifts. Learned to drive on one, and they just make driving less boring.
But this is just silly, leave it for the Disney rides.
The notable part of this is how comfortable car engineers are with fake affordances. But cars are full of them. The "tick" noise turn signals make to imitate 60 year old mechanical gearboxes that used to drive them comes from a speaker. The sound a car door makes when you close it is carefully designed to sound far more solid than it is. And so on.
Cars are just giant, malformed cell phones now. They work hard to insulate you from reality (offer does not apply when driving Teslas around children, first responders, or unexpectedly-shaped barriers). The only interesting part is how far over their skis the "experience engineers" got with this one.
I suspect the description is slightly misleading. I suspect the fakery Toyota created is to emulate, not a truly manual transmission, but rather a modern dual-clutch automatic like most all the high-performance sports cars have these days.
Driving an electric car is pretty much like driving a CVT, which is ever so much more boring than a dual-clutch automatic. What will be cool is if Toyota is then able to complete the fake by providing paddle shifters for their EV.
Humans tend to react more to the second time derivative of velocity (jerk) than to the first time derivative (acceleration). The sudden surge in acceleration as an IC engine reaches peak torque is repeated as you accelerate through the gears in a IC car, but is only experienced at the start when you accelerate in an EV.
This is just dumb. What's the next EV innovation? Simulated black carbon "exhaust fumes" for the MAGAnut "coal rollers"?
If Toyota wants to add "sound efffects", how about an external stereo (volume range strictly limited) that plays engine sounds, or something better, like that Star Wars theme whenever you see the big Corellian space cruisers?
People drive EVs because they want "the EV Experience", as Laertes notes.
I think its BMW that offers you the option of engine sounds played through the entertainment center speakers as you accelerate in your EV. Meanwhile Tesla offers you the option of farting sounds.
Aren't manual transmission vehicles still in widespread use in Europe (and probably elsewhere; I've only driven in Europe)? Maybe this is a play to get drivers outside the US to migrate to automatic transmission.
Yes, manual shift is still quite common in Europe, in fact most rental cars are manual. I have a lot of experience driving them on European roads, and I honestly don't understand why automatic has not taken over there the way it has in the U.S.
The arguments in favor of manual leave me cold. No, it is not more "fun." Nor do I believe that it is safer because it focusses your attention. On the contrary, it divides your attention between different tasks and makes driving less, not more, safe, imo. This is particularly true on windy European secondary roads where you are constantly shifting instead of paying attention to what might be coming around the next blind corner. I also think that with a manual it is harder to stick to the speed limits and thus avoid speed camera fines, the bane of rental car drivers in several Europeans countries. Some people there tell me they think they get better mileage with a manual, but I don't think this has been true for many years. Personally, I'll take an automatic any day.
EVs aside - which are really neither manual nor automatic gearshift as they have fixed ratio gearboxes - manual gearshift cars are still overwhelmingly dominant in the UK.
Being able to change your regen/acceleration profile on the fly is actually quite handy, and can reduce energy usage by mediating inputs and recouping energy instead of braking without the unintentional inefficiency of one-pedal driving.
But the fake sounds? Who wants fake sounds?
but nothing in the excerpt kevin included sounds like changing your regen/acceleration profile or anything else that seems at all useful. fake shifts and fake sounds don't make me want to say "wow". they make me want to say, "wow, that's dumb".
Wow that’s dumb is what I say for the car and motorcycle drivers who buy big engines just to make big noise on city streets. In other words, there will be people who buy fake sounds.
In the North American market perhaps, but how about elsewhere?
As to the feature Toyota is developing, I am in the “what’s the point?” camp.
Further evidence that Tesla and EVs have left traditional automakers floundering. This sounds like some lame attempt from the marketing department to try and tie cars into Toyota's legitimate engine history - which is now a rapidly depreciating asset.
And like commenter Laertes, I should also be the market for this ... but I'm not. Sounds? Are you kidding, am I a three year old on the rocket ship outside the grocery store?
I think there is a market for sequential acceleration/deceleration modes akin to what a gear box provides. Adjustable regenerative breaking is very similar in feel to down-shifting but none of the automotive journalists seemed to like it.
And what part of Elon Musk's history does the Tesla farting sounds option tie back to? Sounds like something for a three year old on the rocket ship outside the grocery store.
My 7yo nephew thinks the farting sound is pretty funny.
Teslas come with a fart button. It lets you make a farting sound from any seat in the car. It might be fun once or twice, with the right teenager in the car, then not so much. It's cheap and kinda dumb.
But it's a vastly better idea than a fake stick shift that makes revving sounds. That's plain stupid.
Tesla’s farting function is labeled ‘Emissions Test’ - the joke of course being that in a Tesla, the only emissions come from farting.
"But if Toyota's EV accelerates from 0-60 in 4 seconds, like a lot of EVs, even experienced stick shift drivers will have to be pretty fast on the clutch."
It is not about acceleration. Dual clutch automatics are faster than manual transmissions, and performance EVs faster still.
It is about enjoyment, engagement. Watch videos of modern sports cars and EVs drag racing each other. All you do is stomp on the throttle and keep a straight line, the car does everything else. There is no skill, no guess work, no luck. Pretty boring.
For those that enjoy manual transmissions, at least on their second fun car, any kind of pretend manual won't do it.
OK, the linked article doesn't quite say it, but it's implied that they put a clutch pedal and fake clutch action on an EV. Seriously?
After forty years of driving a stick I still occasionally have an impulse.. to downshift when cornering
It took me years to shake the habit of putting in the clutch when comming to a stop. The problem was my left foot would miss the nonexistant clutch pedal but catch the wide brake peddle used on cars with automatics.
Screeeech! Bang!
Remember that in Europe, basically all cars are sold with stick shifts (except maybe the Mercedes S-class). It makes sense for Toyota to make an EV that feels familiar to European drivers.
I don't have to research this. I can tell you this was Akio Toyoda's dumb idea. "Driver's feel" was his excuse a decade ago for not embracing electric vehicles.
As I said then, Akio Toyoda has to be removed for Toyota to fully embrace and excel in BEVs.
Oh, I apparently missed out that Akio Toyoda was replaced this past April.
You can't become carbon neutral if your vehicles burn fossil fuels.
The Prius Prime is just dumb.
On paper it seems to make sense, allowing short commuters to benefit the most, especially in sunny locales. But in reality, you merge two powertrains requiring twice the complexity of one or the other. Just embrace the future and speed up battery and electric motor development; stop playing around with ICE.
2030 is too late to stop 1.5C. The lack of urgency is alarming.
No matter how "urgent" nations get, the four or so billion people who don't now have a car are going to get one in the next thirty years. The manufacture of four billion extra cars over those that the current car owners will be using and replacing and the roadways to accommodate them will produce more than enough GHG's to gobble up the savings of EV powertrains in them.
Basically, the world if effyouseeked without a 50% pandemic.
This is dumb and say this as someone who has only ever owned manual transmission cars, a late 1970s Datsun hand me down from my parents, a Toyota Celica that lasted 19 years for me and my current 13 year old Mazda 3. But my next car will be an automatic, it's hilly around here and I'm tired of shifting in traffic and on hills - I'm waiting to go car shopping because my car still runs well, I work from home so I'm not driving as much and I want the car market to get less crazy.
I am a dedicated manual transmission person; I do get a lot of enjoyment from driving it. My wife refused to learn, so an automatic for her. She just got her first CVT, and I must admit I like it much better than the 5-speed auto it replaced, and better than I expected. So I drive it when I have to. Because I am paying attention, I can sense the fake shift points, so subtle that it's a useless frill. I would feel the same about a "manual" EV. The sound of the gas engine helps gauge when to shift, but piping in fake sound is a doubly useless frill. I am at the point where my body is not going to support constant shifting any more: my last manual, just in time to catch the end of the road for ICE.