“Toyota has decided that the way to get people excited about electric vehicles is to give consumers the illusion of driving a stick shift, fake vroom sound and all. The simulated manual transmission and other emerging features give customers “a truly ‘WOW! Experience,’ ” Takero Kato, the president of Toyota’s BEV Factory, told a workshop on the future of cars outside Tokyo last week. (The CAPITALIZATION and exclamation point come from the carmaker’s official English subtitling of the presentation.) The company may roll out the feature with its 2026 electric vehicle fleet, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.”
The MINI Cooper we got on 2003 had a CVT transmission - no individual gears. During acceleration, the engine would run at its most efficient rpm, and the transmission would steadily expand or contract accordingly.
This was apparently so unnerving to some, so they added artificial gear ratios you could manually shift to, just to get the engine to rev like a geared transmission. It made the system comparatively inefficient, and we never used it.
I am reminded of a toddler I saw riding a Big Wheel years ago. The Big Wheel had loud sound effects. He peddled for a little while, then turned them off. Then he yelled, “Vroom! Vroom!”
I’m not sure I’ve ever driven a CVT vehicle – pretty sure I haven’t. But I think it would drive me a bit batty for at least a week or so getting used to there not being that “shift” feeling.
For me, one of the best parts of the EV experience is the neck jerking acceleration without loud sounds and gear shifts. I like engine sounds, and driving a stick, but there is a different kind of fun in getting all of the performance (or more) without all of the drama.
I’m partial to the Pac-Man waka waka waka noise, myself. Hoof falls or coconut claps would be fun, but potentially confusing. A sound that’s obviously a person imitating a vroom vroom car would be hilarious.
I immediately thought of that very ad when I saw this thread. The point of course being that she had learned to wait until just after the normal jarring auto-tranny shift jolt to avoid drawing on her cheek. But their cool new car just didn’t do that anymore.
FYI, many ICE performance cars now pump fake engine noises through the audio system so the car sounds more powerful and noxious to the driver than it does to the passersby.
I like it right up until one day, right after the warranty expired, the transmission failed, completely and irreparably. I think the full replacement cost was something in the $12k range, so we had to basically sell it for parts after less than five years.
I’m sure the reliability has improved, but it left a bitter taste.
I’m not a gearhead by any stretch (except for enjoying stick shifts), but I just have a feeling that it would feel somewhat like a “Shepard tone” to me. Or a cadence that never resolves. Or a sneeze that builds and never delivers.
A guy I worked with related that he and his son were in the check out line behind an obese woman. When her pager went off, his son yelled, “Look out Dad! She’s backing up!”
I eagerly await the day people make a point of hacking the sound files and your car makes the aforementioned Jetson noises, Enterprise noises, or a copy of your own 4 year old going “Vroom Vroom”.
