United States Patent and Trademark Office Hyundai engineers appear to have seen Koenigsegg's wild automatic/manual combo Light Speed Transmission and said "Hey, that's no so hard. Let's do that." Or at least that's how I imagine it went. A recent patent unearthed by CarBuzz shows off Hyundai's own design for an electronic gated manual shifter that can be used both as a manual and as an automatic. Interestingly, though, this doesn't seem to be only for simulated EV shifts, like in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N. In fact, Hyundai doesn't mention what sort of powertrain it's for in the patent. So this could be a technology for both piston-powered cars, and EVs. In the Ioniq 5 N, the steering wheel's paddles let you play pretend and "shift gears" manually. The system will even "hold gears" at redline, restricting forward motion until you hit the upshift paddle. Except, it's electric and has no gears, it's just make-believe. And while it's cool and fun in its own way, this new patent seems entirely different. It seems like it could be the best of all worlds. It has an automatic mode and two different manual modes United States Patent and Trademark Office Hyundai calls this patented tech an "electronic shift operation apparatus," and it's essentially a shift-by-wire, gated manual shifter with a clutch pedal, but it has multiple functions. From the look of the patent drawings, it will have seven functional shift gates and potentially be an open-gate design (which would be awesome). It also has three different means of shifting gears. Despite its manual shift design, it can still be operated like an automatic transmission. When in auto mode, gates three and four become drive and reverse, with the middle being neutral like it would be in a manual, and the clutch pedal becomes a springy footrest. That's the first method of shifting gears However, in auto mode, gates one and two then become a manual shift gates, so you can click forward and backward through gears sequentially like you can in most normal automatic transmissions. That's the second method of shifting. Lastly, if you step on the clutch pedal and engage manual mode, the shifter becomes a traditional manual shifter, with gears one through six and reverse. The clutch pedal also needs to be engaged for shifts to work. All this makes me wonder if Hyundai will build in authentic stalling, like Koenigsegg did with its Light Speed Transmission. If you botch the clutch engagement, will the car will stall? Probably not on an EV, but maybe on something with an ICE powertrain? There's no word of this tech officially making it to market but it does seem like something Hyundai would make. It made big waves with the simulated shifts in the Ioniq 5 N (even if it is a slower way to accelerate), so I wouldn't be surprised to see this tech in future EVs. And since this tech is just for a shifter, not for a specific transmission, it can potentially be used for both gas and electric sports cars. Make it happen, Hyundai, this seems cool as hell.
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