Porsche Wants to Give EVs Fake Gear Shifts
- Mike Stamp
- Aug 28, 2025
- 3 min read
Yes, It’s as Bonkers as It Sounds
Imagine climbing into a Porsche Taycan, pressing the accelerator, and instead of the usual silent whoosh of electrons doing their thing, the car growls. Then, just as you’re grinning at this sci-fi nonsense, you pull the paddle shifter — and the car pretends to change gear. No, you haven’t accidentally inhaled exhaust fumes; Porsche is genuinely considering “fake gear shifts” and artificial engine sounds for its electric cars.
It’s like vegan bacon. Nobody needs it, plenty of people sneer at it, and yet — when done right — it scratches an itch you didn’t realise was still there.
Why Porsche Thinks We Need Fake Gears
The problem with EVs is that they’re a bit too good. Smooth, fast, eerily quiet. Lovely if you’re commuting. Less so if you’re buying a Porsche because you want a driving experience, not a glorified iPad on wheels.
Petrolheads miss the noise, the vibrations, and the physical shove of dropping a gear before flooring it. EVs give you none of that. You mash the throttle and boom — you’re already doing warp speed without so much as a cough from the exhaust. Porsche reckons that’s missing the point of a sports car. Hence: digital burbles and pretend gear changes.
How It Would Work
The system would essentially trick your brain. Press the paddle and the car pauses power delivery for a split second, mimicking the surge you’d feel in a petrol car. Meanwhile, speakers pump out synthesised engine noise that rises and falls with your “gears.”
Hyundai is already testing a similar setup in its Ioniq 5 N. Ford, never one to miss a trick, has even filed a patent for fake gearboxes in EVs. Which means this is no longer a quirky Porsche experiment — it could become the automotive equivalent of auto-tuned pop music: everyone’s doing it, and no one’s admitting it’s daft.
The Sceptics (Including Porsche Itself)
When the idea was first floated inside Porsche, even their engineers apparently rolled their eyes. After all, this is a company that’s spent decades perfecting real gearboxes, not digital pantomimes of them. But the more they tested it, the more they saw drivers actually enjoying the feedback.
And that’s the uncomfortable truth. As much as enthusiasts mock “fake noise,” we’ve already accepted it. Half the cars sold in the past ten years pump artificial sound through the speakers. BMW, Audi, even Ford Fiestas. We sneer, we joke — and then we turn it up anyway because silence is worse.
The Industry Nonsense Factor
Let’s not kid ourselves: this is partly nostalgia, partly marketing. Porsche doesn’t need to add fake gears. Their Taycan already accelerates like it’s being chased by HMRC. But “emotion” sells, and Porsche’s brand is built on it.
Car companies have been faking things for years:
Exhaust tips that aren’t connected to anything.
Soundtracks piped through speakers.
SUVs pretending to be off-roaders but struggling with a Tesco speed bump.
Fake gear shifts are just the next logical step in this theatre of automotive illusion.
Should We Care?
Here’s the thing: if it makes driving an EV more fun, does it matter that it’s fake? Driving has always been a sensory performance. Half of it is the noise and theatre anyway. If we can’t burn dinosaurs anymore, why not at least pretend?
But let’s be clear: if Porsche charges you two grand extra for the “Emotion Pack™” that basically flips a software switch, then you’d be right to feel robbed. (Which, let’s face it, they almost certainly will.)
The Takeaway
EVs are fast but lack character. Porsche’s fake gear shifts aim to fix that.
Other brands are already at it. Expect this trick to spread across the industry.
It’s silly… but it might actually work. And in cars, silly has always sold.
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