Toyota wants future EVs to have manual gearboxes.

The truth of the matter is that the arrival of electric cars has remarkably reshaped how we drive and it’s up to us whether we embrace the change and move with it. 

With electric cars coming from all spheres, Toyota has filed eight patents for its technology that will push to imitate the feel of driving a ‘normal’ manual in an electric car. The technology will see Toyota couple a battery-electric motor and an H-pattern manual transmission with a three-pedal setup. 

To make this possible, a controller will capture signals from the three pedals, gearbox and wheel speed sensors and consequently work its magic in terms of power supply and torque distribution. 

According to Toyota, the vehicle will imitate the feeling of driving a manual ICE car. 

While the whole setup looks complex, close sources who have seen the filed patent application say words like “pseudo-gearshift,” “pseudo clutch pedal” and “pseudo engine speed meter” appear on it. It remains to be seen if this will indeed materialise since we know current electric cars either have single- or two-speed transmissions. 

The patent was filed at the United States Patent and Trademark Office and has recently been made public but the marque is still waiting for a patent to be issued.