Porsche Patents Heated Paddle Shifters That Feel More Like a Manual

Manual transmissions are becoming increasingly scarce, and for numerous reasons, and if two-pedal driving is the norm, two new patents filed by Porsche aim to make shifting gears via paddles as enjoyable as possible. Automatics are easier to produce, are more often bought by most customers, and are now capable of handling more torque than manuals, but according to two patents filed with the European Intellectual Property Office, they have room for improvement, reports CarBuzz, specifically when it comes to their shift paddles, which can be both more exciting to use and more comfortable to engage with in the winter. Since the patents were filed separately, we'll address them separately, but we have no doubt that their ideas could be combined.

Porsche Proposes an End to Cold Fingertips

We already have heated seats, steering wheels, armrests, and door cards, and the first patent argues that there's no reason that similar heating elements could not be installed in shift paddles. While this may seem like overengineering, the patent says that metal shift paddles get "uncomfortably cold" in the winter, and since Porsche is a luxury brand, these sorts of small details matter. Metal shift paddles are meant to create a greater sense of luxury, purpose, and tactility, but what good are they if the driver doesn't want to use them? Therefore, Porsche proposes that a heating element be added to the paddles during the molding or casting process, and we imagine this idea could be applied to carbon fiber or plastic paddles, too.

Porsche Patents Good Vibrations for Gear Shifts

Porsche's second patent for shift paddles notes that, while automatic transmissions of all sorts have come a long way, they remain less engaging than shifting gears with a stick and a clutch pedal. But as we noted at the outset, these are close to falling entirely out of favor, so Porsche suggests adding a "mechanical counterforce generating device" to the paddles' mechanism, essentially adding a mild form of force feedback like you'd get on a video game controller, albeit less intensely than in that application (we can see the seeds of this idea in the fitment of magnetic shift paddles in the 911 GT3 RS with the Weissach Package). The idea is that pulling back on the paddle would provide more resistance, and like a video game controller, the amount of feedback could be adaptive; less resistance in comfort and more in sport and track modes, for example. The patent also proposes that each gear could be made to feel different, potentially allowing the driver to determine the gear they're in without looking down, and the system could even be tuned to make it harder/impossible to select a gear that is too low for the current engine speed.

Our Conclusion

Both patents show that Porsche obsesses over the details, and while both seem at face value like somewhat petty ideas, the more we consider these potential technologies, the more we see that Porsche is determined to keep driving pleasure at the fore - whether one is trundling to work in the snow or revving to 9,000 rpm on the track. Will these ideas make production? We don't know for sure, but besides their obvious but relatively minor cost and complexity implications, we see no reason why they shouldn't.

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