The emergence of electrified vehicles has been taken arsenic 1 much nail successful the coffin of the manual transmission. But Toyota could beryllium moving to guarantee that hybrid vehicles don’t mean the extremity of selecting your ain gears.
The automaker precocious filed a patent exertion connected a strategy that would facilitate the usage of a manual transmission successful hybrid vehicles. The strategy would negociate the interplay betwixt the interior combustion engine, the electrical motor, and their requirements connected the transmission.
Although the patent was filed successful August 2021, it was lone published successful February, and was archetypal noticed by The Drive. The main absorption of the patent is the absorption of the clutch.
Read: Toyota Developing Fake Manuals For EVs, Patents Reveal
The alternatively analyzable transmission would see a shuttle valve with aggregate clutch cylinders. These would, successful turn, beryllium connected to the clutch pedal and the ECU. That would let the operator to prime gears much oregon little arsenic they would expect from a manual transmission.
Meanwhile, the clutch going to the ECU would assistance the car seamlessly displacement betwixt motor and electrical power. The machine could chopped successful and efficaciously depress the clutch erstwhile the car is coasting to a stop, oregon portion it’s taking disconnected to let the electrical centrifugal to measurement successful erstwhile necessary.
The statement of the valves means that the operator would ever beryllium capable to depress the clutch, careless of what the ECU wants. The patent besides allows for a driving mode successful which the machine butts retired entirely, and the transmission is connected to the clutch pedal alone.
The patent volition astir surely appeal to enthusiasts, particularly present that hybrid powertrains are becoming much and much communal among show vehicles. It besides follows from Toyota‘s patent for a simulated manual transmission for electrical vehicles, and is further grounds that the Japanese automaker wants to proceed courting car radical arsenic the manufacture electrifies.