Could EVs have manual transmissions?

A great deal of the hesitation drivers display towards EVs seems to reflect a love of the combustion engine, the feel of driving, and the experience it provides. One integral part of this is the ability to shift gears manually. EVs often have only one gear, benefiting from the instantaneous torque the engine is able to provide. This negating the need for a manual gear shift. Jason Fenske from Engineering Explained considered this issue, and looked at whether an EV could run with a manual transmission.  The journalist’s interest was sparked by a Renault Season 2 Formula E car, the division that races purely electric vehicles. “What’s super clever about their setup is that they actually went a bit old school, and incorporated a manual gear stick,” Fenske says. The Renault Formula E car has a manual gearstick that uses cables and rods to switch between gears. So, the main question here is answered. It appears that EVs can have gears, with a manual shift. But is this practical? The answer lies in the use of a clutch. A key benefit of the electric motor is that it can provide instant torque. For this reason, electric motors don’t stall, and thus don’t need a flywheel to offset the speed differential between the RPM of the transmission and the engine. Removing the flywheel (along with many other bits of componentry that EVs lose because of the nature of their design) lightens the vehicles, and increases performance. The use of a manual transmission also requires a drivetrain which would cause further efficiency loss. Changing gears manually is also slower, as the Renault Formula E team found out. They have chosen a single gear for all their team’s cars and have won the three season championships they have entered in with them. It’s possible that when converting a car to an EV from a combustion engine it could be easier to leave in the drivetrain, transmission, and other componentry unnecessary to an EV, for cost reasons. So, in this case you may find one. Otherwise, it appears unlikely. Therefore, while a manual transmission on an EV is possible, it’s not practical, and is unlikely to be widely adopted. As Fenske puts it, a manual transmission on an EV would be “really for driving joy, rather than a logical reason.” However, there is no denying that people enjoy them. It’s not impossible then, that a manual transmission may be a feature of some EV models in the future.