Nowadays, if you want to experience the brutish torque of an electric motor and the thrill of changing gear in a road car, you’re kind of stuck.
You can build a custom one yourself or blag your way behind the wheel of a Formula E car. However, things won’t stay like this for long, as Wards Auto reports on information obtained from a James Potter, the controls manager for ZF Powertrain Technology.
“For passenger cars, I would say we will probably eventually rise up to 3- or 4-speeds,” he said, while confirming “two-speeds are coming out, and that will be the next generation.”
Potter says there is incentive to develop these multi-speed gearboxes because with a 3- or 4-speed box a current EV would see its range go up by as much as 20 percent. It would have positive implications for both in-town and highway driving.
No exact time frame for when we should expect to see these transmissions debut, but with the increasing popularity around the world, there’s increasing incentive to invest in development. It’s probably still hard to justify pumping money into a sector that still only accounts for 0.4 percent of all vehicle sales in the US.
Do also check out the three-speed box demonstrated in the video below – it’s not a ZF unit, but one made by KOM Advanced Powertrain Strategies.