Toyota is coming out with a simulated manual but Honda is not.
Speaking to Car and Driver at a roundtable interview, Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe and Shinji Aoyama, Honda’s head of electrification, threw cold water on the idea of a sporty EV with a traditional manual or even a simulated one. “Artificially, we can do it. Mechanically, it is not easy,” said Aoyama.
If you’re confused by the idea of an artificial manual transmission in an EV, it would likely be similar to the system Toyota recently patented that includes “a clutch, a gear shifter, and ‘virtual” gear ratios’” to mimic the feeling of driving a traditional manual. Aoyama doesn’t like that approach, saying such an idea was “like an extension of active sound control.”
Speaking to Car and Driver at a roundtable interview, Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe and Shinji Aoyama, Honda’s head of electrification, threw cold water on the idea of a sporty EV with a traditional manual or even a simulated one. “Artificially, we can do it. Mechanically, it is not easy,” said Aoyama.
If you’re confused by the idea of an artificial manual transmission in an EV, it would likely be similar to the system Toyota recently patented that includes “a clutch, a gear shifter, and ‘virtual” gear ratios’” to mimic the feeling of driving a traditional manual. Aoyama doesn’t like that approach, saying such an idea was “like an extension of active sound control.”
