More details about the fake manual transmission for electric cars developed by Toyota have emerged from a recently published patent application. Toyota’s alibi gearbox could have up to 14 simulated gears.

In a recent article about Toyota’s financial forecasts and EV strategy, we mentioned the plans for a ‘manual transmission’ Toyota has been experimenting with in an altered Lexus UX 300e. Now, more details have emerged.

Sporty image

One would say that an electric car’s quiet, fuzz-free acceleration and driving are its strongest selling points. Not so for the engineers at Toyota. They lack ‘driving pleasure,’ so they’ve been looking for means to heighten the fun behind the wheel again.

At Toyota, they seem to be struggling with their sporty image. That’s why they have developed an imitation manual transmission, which will become a staple offering of fun EVs. The software potential of the new architecture would also allow people to download different performance packs for their cars, for example, the performance of the Lexus LFA or the steering feel of the Toyota GR86.

The ‘manual transmission’ has been under development for three years and is almost entirely software-operated, with some hardware (clutch pedal, gearshift) borrowed from a Toyota GR86.

In the driving prototype (an altered Lexus UX 300e), you also have a rev counter and paddle shifts. There’s a secondary ‘engine start’ button, which fires up an ICE engine sound akin to that of… a Golf GTI.

“From the outside, this vehicle is as quiet as any other BEV. But the driver can experience all the sensations of a manual transmission vehicle,” commented Takashi Watanabe, Chief Engineer of Lexus’ electric vehicle department. “This gave us so much fun that the project is now under serious development.”

Media reports now reveal that the technical document for the patent application is accompanied by images showing a system with up to 14 gears. Six to seven gears are standard in an ICE car without automatic or robotized transmission. We are talking about “virtual gear steps”, the number of which customers can choose.

Patent application

The patent goes into much detail concerning the ins and outs of such a system. In a nutshell, the driver can select precisely how many ratios he wants. “The number of the virtual gear stage may be six stages or more, or less than six stages,” the document notes. “A driver is allowed to select a desired pattern in line with his/her preference.”

The whole “select a pattern” part is slightly misleading, though. To be clear, the automaker does not describe some kind of electro-mechanical system to create as many physical shift gates as the user desires effectively.

Instead, there would be a fixed number of actual gates, likely six, but Toyota uses four as an example. A gear is selected just like a regular manual; however, the lever may return to the neutral position after use.

Then, as the driver goes through the gears, the virtual pattern shifts to the next set of ‘ratios’. So if a pattern of six gears and a sixth is selected, a display will change the available ratios, inviting the driver to go up to the seventh and all of the gears after that or down to the fifth and the existing set of gears.

There’s a reason why automakers have never gone for more than seven gears in standard passenger cars. A 14-speed manual isn’t practical when mated to an ICE engine. When your manual transmission is just being simulated, though, Toyota seems to think there’s no harm in giving people a wide choice: strange people, these Japanese.