It doesn’t matter how much you believe EVs are not the future, you can’t deny the impact the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N has had on the performance EV market. With one humble family crossover-turned-hot-hatch (even if it’s not really a hot hatch), Hyundai’s N division proved to the world that EVs can be fun, even if they need to pretend to be combustion cars to do it.
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.
The Ultimate Solution To The Manual Vs. Automatic Debate
The patent, filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), shows a new take on the concept of giving a car simulated shifts. This time, Hyundai’s N-gineers are proposing a system that could bring back the stick shift even on cars with an automatic transmission. The patent is remarkably detailed, and goes to great lengths to explain the physical makeup of the shift mechanism – which suggests this is more than just a concept – but the idea itself is simple, and one we’ve already seen pioneered by Koenigsegg and more recently investigated by Porsche.
Hyundai wants a shifter that can behave like a gated manual when you want it to, but a traditional automatic when you’re feeling lazy. Hyundai proposes a shifter with no physical connection to the transmission. Instead, shift-by-wire functionality enables it to behave like an automatic most of the time, but in specific driving modes, it can mimic a traditional H-pattern manual. Sounds fun; here’s how it works.
The H-Pattern Is Perfect For Hyundai
At its core, the “electronic shift operation apparatus,” as Hyundai calls it, has seven available gates, mimicking a six-speed manual with a reverse gate, numbered one through R.
In automatic mode, the shifter would only be operable between two of these gates, each allocated either the Drive or Reverse functions. But Hyundai also proposes the gates parallel to these being operable too, specifically for the use of a manual mode where the car behaves like it has a sequential shifter. By pushing the shift lever over to one side, you’d then be able to push forward to shift up and back to shift down, mimicking a traditional automatic.
So what makes this special? Well, there’s a clutch pedal, and by pressing the clutch pedal and selecting manual mode, all seven gates are opened up, and the transmission becomes a fully operable manual, with neutral being engaged any time the shifter is between these positions.
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This article originally appeared on CarBuzz and is republished here with permission.
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