Manual transmission is the "enlightenment" of some people for car driving, and often the first car contacted in driving school is the manual transmission model.
But now that the car is evolving from a mechanical product to an electronic product, will the manual transmission product disappear along with the fuel vehicle? Toyota gave a solution that simulates a manual transmission + electric vehicle and applied for a patent in the United States; the two products put together, it is really difficult to understand what kind of car this is. But in real life, there have been these products, BYD, BAIC have produced simulated manual transmission of the "driving school special" car, there are also new energy trucks with real manual transmission.
The existence of these products is to take care of the niche market group, if it is an ordinary consumer can only choose new energy products in the future, but also want to play manual transmission is also possible. So, does the hand gear make sense for electric vehicles?
Looking at it this way, just adding to the driving pleasure?
Toyota's application for a pure electric model manual transmission is not a traditional manual transmission in the real sense, but a simulated manual transmission effect, using a single gear ratio gearbox (a more common one on electric vehicles). We understand it to preserve the feel of a manual transmission, and the eight patents include a false shift lever and a false clutch pedal.
The logic of this gearbox is simply to use "virtual shifting" to limit the power that the motor can output and the speed that can be achieved. For example, after the driver has hooked up through the gear lever and clutch, the system calculates the maximum torque output of the electric motor; the hook logic is the same as that of manual gear, with higher torque in the low gear and higher speeds.
The underlying logic is that through the shifting, different gears correspond to the different degrees of torque release of the motor, thus simulating the use of manual transmission. In addition to the simulation effect, it also includes the sense of feedback of the clutch, similar to the feeling of use on the fuel vehicle.
In the patent filed by Toyota, the analog manual transmission offers three different modes:
A fully simulated experience that requires the user to use both the clutch and the gear lever; the gear shift without the clutch and directly operating the gear lever; and the fully automatic mode, which means that the driver does not need to operate the clutch or gear lever, while the system chooses the best gear to use, as in the case of an automatic transmission.
To put it bluntly, Toyota's manual transmission patent for this electric vehicle is only to provide a driving experience similar to that of manual transmission. To say that there is no help for performance improvement, for the time being, the logic of electric vehicle power release is that the maximum peak torque can be achieved at the beginning, after adding the simulated manual gear, it is torque limiting in the corresponding gear, and the most fundamental purpose is only to increase the driving pleasure.
The above is still in the patent stage, and the specific mass production and actual application cannot be evaluated for the time being.
Performance car tuning good logic is easy to use, hardcore off-road also has a need?
At present, most of the electric vehicles on the market do not have a transmission similar to that of traditional fuel vehicles, and most of them use a common single gear ratio gearbox. It can ensure the speed of power response, reduce the complexity of the powertrain, save costs, and reduce power loss, which has become a best choice in the early stage of the development of electric vehicles, and is a more popular trend.
If the simulation is used manually on such a single gear ratio gearbox, will there be any performance improvement? No, it will only increase the driving pleasure.
Then, we can also find a multi-gear transmission in the electric models currently on sale, wouldn't it be more helpful if we put the simulation manually on this? The first use scenario was in electric vehicle racing, and the dual-gear transmission was later also used in production cars such as the Porsche Taycan, with the logic being that the first gear was used to guarantee the best acceleration performance and the second gear was used to reach the vehicle's maximum speed, but it was usually matched with dual motors (multi-motor).
In a pure electric performance car, matching the double gear, simulating the manual transmission, you can simulate multiple gears in the second gear to achieve the torque release corresponding to each gear, so that the vehicle can have better artificial speed control when cornering, followed by the vehicle's endurance, performance, and power loss will be improved.
Analog manual transmission for the improvement of vehicle performance has a certain help, but also only auxiliary, essentially need this car to have dual motors, multi-gear these hardware, combined to theoretically get the best performance and endurance effect.
If you put it on a hard-core off-road vehicle, I think it will play a greater role. Off-road SUV electrification has already begun, and having a four-wheel motor that can directly provide maximum torque is really helpful for off-road SUVs that require the characteristics of low rpm and high torque. However, if you do the preparation of the full road condition off-road, you need to have a more stringent standard for torque release, and you also need to respond to different torque releases when facing different road conditions.
The above is also an example, if it is a double gearbox, considering the performance, you can simulate several manual gears in the second gear to better control the speed of the vehicle. If it is for off-road considerations, several manual gears can be simulated in the low speed gear of one gear, which can more accurately control the torque output and limit of the vehicle in extreme situations, which will also help the use of hard off-road and extreme environments.
The above is just an idea of simulating the manual of electric vehicles, but the powertrain of electric vehicles in the future is certainly not only a single gear ratio transmission and a two-speed transmission, but also a transmission mechanism with more gears, matching the performance of different uses of cars and off-road vehicles.
summary
The patent given by Toyota is just a simulated manual to increase the driving pleasure of pure electric models, which can be similar to the feeling of driving a manual model, including the feedback of the clutch and the form of gear shifting. But Toyota doesn't seem to be limited to doing this in analog hands; toyota's GR HV hybrid system concept car in 2017 also uses a simulated manual set of equipment.
We can also guess a wave, the future of pure electric transmission driving may be integrated into the simulated manual transmission, but not only the form of manual. Or perhaps, the future simulation manual is a nostalgic way for electric vehicle drivers to traditional fuel vehicles.