Triptonic Transmission

Tiptronic is a registered trademark, and the word "Tiptronic" is owned by German sports
car maker Porsche, who licenses it for use by other manufacturers, such as Volkswagen,
Audi, and SEAT. However, many people use the term (erroneously) to refer generically
to any automatic torque converter transmission that incorporates a manual upshift /
downshift feature.

A Tiptronic transmission can operate in the same manner as a conventional type of

automatic transmission, but the second and sometimes third mode also allows the driver
an additional method of manually overriding the automatic shift changes, by moving the
shift lever into a second shift gate, equipped with two spring-loaded positions: "upshift"
and "downshift". Once the lever is in this gate, the driver takes over most of the gear
shifting decisions, which would ordinarily be performed by the transmission's computer,
permitting, for example, the delaying of an upshift for increased acceleration, or to
increase the effect of the engine braking. On some models, the upshift and downshift
operations can also be commanded by push-buttons or "paddle shifters" installed on the
steering wheel, with an optional display in the instrument panel indicating the current
gear selection.

Though Tiptronic transmissions allow the driver a certain measure of discrete control, the
Tiptronic design is implemented using a torque converter like other automatic
transmissions. A true Tiptronic transmission is not a computer controlled manual
transmission (with a conventional clutch), or semi-automatic transmission. Most
Tiptronic implementations still make some shifts automatically, primarily to protect the
engine and transmission. For example, as used by licensee Audi, their five-speed
Tiptronic will automatically make the upshifts from 1 to 2 when moving off from a stop,
even when in manual mode; the transmission then waits for the user's upshift command
before proceeding from 2 to 3, 3 to 4 and 4 to 5, although the transmission will still
upshift if the redline is approached. On deceleration, the transmission will make all
downshifts automatically when close to the tick-over or idle speed, to avoid running the
engine at too-low an RPM, although the user can accelerate any downshift (that would
not violate the redline), thus allowing improved engine braking, or preparation for
intended acceleration. There are some exceptions to this; the system used in the Aston
Martin DB9 is designed to hold the gear at the engine's redline, though it will still
downshift automatically. This system also allows the engine to blip the throttle during
downshifts for a smoother shift, reducing the "" by the wheels, which affects traction.

Most luxury vehicles with a Tiptronic transmission have two fully-automatic modes: the
primary mode, identified as "Drive", "Comfort" or similar; and another, usually called
"Sport," which delays upshifts for a sportier driving at the expense of fuel, wear, comfort,
and noise. Furthermore, because modern Tiptronic-type transmissions now utilise
electronics, incorporating an electronic control unit (ECU), sometimes specifically
referred to as the transmission control unit, the ECUs are able to use fuzzy logic, which
means that the operation of the transmission is said to be "adaptive", whereby it will learn
how the user drives the car, and will tailor the automatic shift points accordingly. This
adapts to the demands being placed upon the car by the driver. In this way, shift quality
has been improved due to better electronic controls.Some makes such as Aston Martin,
Audi, BMW, Smart, Subaru and Volkswagen offer paddle shifters behind the steering
wheel for controlling their similar transmissions.

Some systems such as Citroën's Sensodrive, Ferrari's F1-Superfast, Toyota sequential

manual transmission (SMT), and Volkswagen Group's Direct-Shift Gearbox (DSG) are
constructed differently from true Tiptronic transmissions, in that they are actually based
on sequential manual gearboxes, but have an electronically controlled clutch (or in the
case of DSG, two clutches). These may be incorrectly referred to as Tiptronics, when
considering the original Porsche development, but should be considered to be semi-
automatic transmissions. However, even with these "semi automatics", the word
"Tiptronic" may still be licensed by their relative manufacturers to indicate a manual
control of such transmissions.