The Best Driver Engagement Gimmick So Far
This could be the best and most hilarious driver engagement gimmick we’ve seen so far, and it comes from Toyota, of all brands. Nowadays, automakers are pumping in fake engine noise, playing with torque delivery, and giving performance EVs “modes” that drivers can play around with to simulate the feel of a traditional combustion engine.
Artificial is the word that comes to mind here, and while some are better gimmicks than others, like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N with its N-branded bag of tricks, others might be downright cringeworthy.
This one, however, takes the cake, and Toyota‘s behind it. Apparently, if you’re not good at driving a manual, the EV will promptly let you know that you need more practice with a stick shift because the ‘fake’ manual will stall the car.
Toyota
What Transmission?
While other brands are putting simulated gears into their EVs by tweaking the brake regeneration system and the electric motor’s torque delivery, Toyota is taking it a step further by adding even the bad parts of driving with gears. CarBuzz picked up on a patent that points to this.
Perhaps Toyota engineers took the idea from Hyundai, not just by adding an artificial redline to the car, but also a stalling function that mimics the behavior of a traditional manual transmission. There will be three pedals here: the gas, brake, and clutch, from right to left. To operate the vehicle, one would assume that you slowly let off the clutch pedal and give it a bit of gas to get going – in an EV.
Toyota’s system is a “virtual torque transmitting capacity changing device,” which, in layman’s terms, is a simulated clutch for an electric motor. The system works by pre-programming the computer with a set of speeds for each “gear.” However, because it is an EV, everything is done through clever coding, and no such “gear” or “transmission,” for that matter, exists.
Toyota
The Good and the Bad
I have to say, Toyota’s one of the last brands that I expected to come up with this. Not only are they putting some traditional driver engagement back into what would otherwise have been a lifeless EV, but they’re also including all the bad bits and quirks associated with driving a stick.
How the system stalls is also quite interesting because, according to the patent, not only can the vehicle roll back on a hill, but the vehicle can also stall if you don’t give it enough “gas.” if you’ve got two-left feet when it comes to driving a manual and eventually ‘stall’ the car, the system will engage the brakes an simulate the dreaded ‘jerk’ that most beginner drivers experience. Also, if you try to start the car in too high a gear, it will do the same thing.
To add insult to injury, the system can also “have enough” of bad driving and give you a crutch in the form of Hill Hold Assist Control. If the system detects you’re not good, or if someone is behind you, it will automatically enable the feature. There is a high note to this, though. While the system does include the “bad” side of driving stick, it also allows you to dump the clutch and perform hard launches or even clutch kicks to burn some rubber.
Toyota
The Best Part: It’s All Virtual
With no transmission, no actual gears, and no actual clutch, all of this is just automotive theater, but it’s a good show from Toyota. The fact that this feature exists and that Toyota came up with it really puts a smile on my face. Right now, driving around in an EV or a hybrid tends to feel quite lifeless, and if this is one of the ways that we’ll be able to get back some of that feeling, then I’m all for it.
You may say, “It’s still not a stick, nor is it a real manual transmission,” but with tightening emissions and other brands losing their way, it’s great to see that some manufacturers are still using their engineering dollars to give us something exciting and genuinely novel.
Toyota
