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Hyundai Wants To Preserve the Feeling of Switching Gears in Electric Vehicles

Most electric vehicles don’t have a gearbox, and that is, in fact, one of their most important qualities. Nevertheless, purists object that linear acceleration lacks the spirit of a proper gearbox switching gears at the redline. Hyundai pledged to change that with the next Ioniq 5 N.
Hyundai wants to preserve the feeling of switching gears in electric vehicles 6 photos
Photo: Hyundai
Hyundai Ioniq 5 N prototypeHyundai Ioniq 5 N prototypeHyundai Ioniq 5 N Joins RN22e and N Vision 74Hyundai RN22 rolling labHyundai paddle shifter
One of the best qualities of an electric vehicle is linear acceleration. Indeed, since electric motors can work hard to pull the car from zero rpm, it doesn’t need to adapt the motor speed to the wheel rotation speed. They can also spin much faster than a combustion engine, so there’s also no need for an overdrive. It just pulls and pulls, from start to the maximum speed, relentlessly.

As beautiful as this is, petrolheads can’t grasp it. They complain that electric vehicles lack soul and the driving experience is missing an important part: switching gears. That’s why some carmakers thought bringing the gearbox back to EVs would be great. Of course, it isn’t, and because they know it, they only want to simulate the action of switching gears, although a gearbox is still missing.

We wrote about Lexus developing a software trick to simulate changing gears and offer the proper feedback to the driver. Now we’ve learned that Hyundai plots a similar path. In an interview with Australia’s CarExpert, Hyundai Executive Technical Advisor Albert Biermann confirmed that its “N e-shift” would offer the feel and sound of the DCT in the i30 N hot-hatch. Not only that, but also “the same jolt and vibrations you experience in the ICE N cars.”

“Sound-wise, though, it’s very challenging, especially those pops and crackles you get in the i30 N, but we’re still working on this technology to bring the DCT in-car experience of a combustion engine car to similar emotional levels in our Ioniq 5 N EV,” Biermann told CarExpert.

The feature is currently still in development, with the team working on adding things like the rev limiter and various sound characters to choose from. The “virtual grin shift,” as Biermann calls it, is activated by pushing a button and pulling both shift paddles simultaneously. Pulling them again will deactivate the virtual DCT gearbox because it would not be practical to use paddle shifters in city traffic.
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About the author: Cristian Agatie
Cristian Agatie profile photo

After his childhood dream of becoming a "tractor operator" didn't pan out, Cristian turned to journalism, first in print and later moving to online media. His top interests are electric vehicles and new energy solutions.
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