What do you do when your customers keep demanding a shift knob but you don’t want to go through the trouble of actually engineering a manual option? If you ask Koenigsegg or Ferrari, you’ll be told to take a dual-clutch transmission, perform a nice bit of digital and mechanical wizardry to make it simulate manual behavior on demand, then finish things off with a gear stick and a clutch pedal.
Just like that, you’ve got yourself a manual without actually having a manual. This trick was first seen on the Koenigsegg CC850 and then Maranello’s 12Cilindri Manuale, but it now seems like Porsche wants to join the party, too. Recently, CarBuzz came across this patent filed by Porsche AG to the European Patent Office, suggesting the company might soon follow in Ferrari’s footsteps.
Porsche May Soon Develop A Faux Manual Of Its Own
Diagram of Porsche’s fake manual transmission patentEuropean Patent Office
From the patent’s diagram and accompanying description, we learn that Porsche’s take on this isn’t at all dissimilar to what Ferrari or Koenigsegg came up with. A DCT once again sits at the core of it all, able to perform gear changes automatically until one of two manual modes is engaged.
The first of them enables drivers to change gears themselves via paddle shifters or a stick, but without having to engage the clutch pedal. An important distinction between this arrangement and the one used by Ferrari is the presence of said paddle shifters, because the 12Cilindri Manuale only has the gear knob and no shifting devices on its steering column.
Back to Porsche’s design, a second manual mode lets you do things the old-school way – by pressing the clutch pedal while you work your way up and down the gearbox with a traditional shift stick. Interesting stuff, for sure, but there’s one question likely floating around in your minds.
Why Build A Fake Manual Instead Of The Real Thing?
Ferrari 12Cilindri ManualeFerrari
There are a couple of practical reasons why manufacturers might choose to go down this route. On the one hand, we’ve got the very real constraints of manual transmissions reliably handling the massive power and torque produced by modern high-end sports cars. But beyond that, it becomes a matter of streamlining production.
Although it may not seem like such a big deal for automakers to fit a different gearbox in their cars, it does require many other bits and pieces to be re-engineered around it. Production costs can add up fairly quickly as a result, on top of expenses related to developing the transmission itself.
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters:
We’re sure a lot of purists won’t take kindly to manufacturers now faking the manual experience on certain models, but what if the other option is its complete extinction? Ferrari, for instance, said a real setup was completely off the table for the 12Cilindri, so are we really going to complain about there being a way to at least simulate that deeper connection between driver and machine?
And, realistically speaking, we will probably witness other similar systems implemented by carmakers in the future, which means you may want to get used to them sticking around. At this point, though, it’s still uncertain whether Porsche will actually apply this idea to any of its production models, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.
Patent filings do not guarantee the use of such technology in future vehicles and are often used exclusively as a means of protecting intellectual property. Such a filing cannot be construed as confirmation of production intent.
Source: European Patent Office
