How does a manual gearbox make sense in a car with an electric motor?

It’s a lot more detail than I have seen in other articles about this subject.

The systemm which has been in development for three years, will be a factory option buyers can select in models created on the new modular architecture being developed for launch in 2026. This will include a production version of the FT-Se sports car concept, which is being seen as a spiritual successor to the MR2. The system is likely to be standard in cars with this kind of performance focus.

Hmm. So it’s going to be “standard” on the sports car, but can we at least bypass it, switch it off? If we can’t, that’s a deal breaker to me.

The system is almost entirely software-operated, with hardware tweaks limited to a clutch pedal and gear shift borrowed from a Toyota GR86, and a rev counter and some new switchgear to select the mode. Paddle shifts are possible, too.

Man, I really have no use for paddles.

Toyota is also developing ‘On Demand’ software for BEVs that changes the performance of the car to mimic certain other models.

This is the part I hadn’t seen mentioned before.

Then there’s a secondary ‘Engine start’ button, which fires an engine sound up - and a familiar one at that: a Volkswagen Golf GTI.

Please no. Just no.

All the usual manual features are there: engine braking, coasting and most amusingly no torque when you suddenly try and accelerate in top gear, which then brings with it synthetic sound of parts of the cabin trim rattling. It sounds like a gimmick but it’s actually all rather believable.

This is all against my automotive religion. But okay Toyota, I’m no fanatic. Just let me switch off all the nonsense gimmicks, and I’ll consider your car. If it can’t all be turned off, or if the added switchgear looks like it’s going to get in my way at all, just remember that there will be other companies selling EV sports cars without this, and I can buy from them.

I love manual transmissions. Every car I’ve ever owned that wasn’t electrified has been manual. I love analog, tactile, engaging driving experiences and have gravitated to lotus for these reasons.

But, I think we’re headed in the wrong direction on this. All of this fake engine noise, simulated shifting, artificial drive modes, it’s not the way. It’s pandering. It’s also an admission that EVs are not as exciting as what came before. An EV pretending to be a gas car will never be as good as a gas car is at being a gas car. So what are we doing here?

How about this: let’s develop new ways that EVs are exciting and engaging and give the driver more direct feedback from the chassis and inputs. Instead of clinging to the past, let’s embrace the future and come up with something that plays to the strengths of EVs.

One way I can think that EVs are more engaging and connected than gas cars is the accelerator pedal. In an EV, it feels like there is a direct linkage between your foot and the electric motor. It’s almost like you can “feel” the torque curve and roll it around under your foot. Combine it with strong regenerative braking and the feeling is like a scalpel. It’s a higher fidelity input than a gasoline car. Let’s start there, because not every EV automaker gets even that part right.

But then what? I’m not sure. But here are a few ideas:

1. Active aero. Air brakes flipping up under hard braking, wings tilting, air blades ejecting, etc. that new Nissan Hyper Force has a bit of this actually. Lotus does it too on Eletre but it’s very subtle. It shouldn’t be subtle. The driver should feel and/or see that it’s happening. Give audible cues so the driver understands what the aero is doing. It makes the car feel alive.

2. Give us sound, but not fake. I don’t know what the engineers have to do but warp or modify the real acoustic noise than EV motors make in ways that are more satisfying than a high pitched sound. We do this for gas cars, engineering the exhaust note. There must be a way to EVs.

3. Drop some pounds for crying out loud. This is going to take some battery breakthroughs but the EVs need to shed weight so the chassis communicates more and the assists (steering, traction, torque vectoring) can all be dialed back.

4. If you’re going to pipe in fake noise, make it mean something. Let me “hear” the amount of power going to each wheel through torque vectoring.

5. Give my left foot something to do. What can that control? Maybe stronger regen. Maybe it cancels regen like a clutch. Maybe it increases or decreases the torque vectoring to change chassis dynamics mid-corner. Hell maybe it’s a boost pedal idk.

These might not be great ideas, but my point is this: we have this new technology. Let’s leverage its strengths to great more engaging experiences rather than stifling it with nostalgia. We’re drivers we want fidelity and control, not a binky to console us.

I will never buy an EV sports car that pretends to be an ICE.

Give me the real un-amplified sound of an electric motor. Give me the real unmodified torque curve. And for god’s sake please lose some weight.

…DUMB.

My first car was a manual and all my cars since have been automatics and I don’t miss manual. Seriously, the desire for manual is for boomers.