The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N was a revelation. With over 600 hp it would of course be fast, but in the end it was much more than that. It is an absolute pleasure to driveand a big part of that is because it will trick you with fake shifts. It sounds like a gimmick, but it’s actually legitimately useful on the track. If you were hoping Porsche would follow suit and give its future EVs fake shifts, we’ve got bad news. Australia’s Drive reports that’s not going to happen.
Speaking to a group of Australian journalists, development driver Lars Kern said that Porsche doesn’t see why its electric cars should resemble gasoline-powered cars:
Obviously we look at what the competition is doing, but our perspective on this is always: why make something worse? I mean, because it’s just as much the way the power translates or how the power is applied? The electric motor is better than an ICE (combustion engine), so we thought there was no reason to simulate what has happened in the past.
We’ve looked at it, but… I don’t see the point in using it to make it feel like an internal combustion engine, because it’s not, so we don’t do it. We don’t want to fake the internal combustion engine, because we’re still producing internal combustion engines, so we don’t do it, we don’t see the point.
Kern couldn’t have said it much more explicitly. Unless something changes, Porsche will no longer offer fake shifting on future EVs. And it’s not that he’s wrong. Using the fake transmission mode in the Ioniq 5 N makes it half a second slower to 60 mph than when it’s off. If you’re trying to get around the track as quickly as possible, you obviously don’t want to turn it on. But if you’re just trying to have fun on the track, who cares about a half second here or there? It sounds silly in theory, but the fake shifting actually makes the Ioniq 5 N a more engaging car.
We have reached out to Porsche PR to confirm Kern’s comments and will update this post if they get back to us. Hopefully, the folks at Porsche will eventually change their minds. It makes sense that they care so much about lap times, but sometimes having fun is just more important.
