Gear shift sound for Tesla: a simulated gearbox

Why a Tesla never shifts

An electric motor delivers its torque from zero to very high revs, so a Tesla uses a single fixed reduction gear: no gearbox, no gear changes, one long smooth pull. It is efficient and fast, but it removes something drivers of combustion cars know by ear: the rhythm of the revs climbing, dropping at each shift, and climbing again.

Car makers have noticed. Hyundai's Ioniq 5 N simulates the shifts of a dual-clutch gearbox, Genesis offers a virtual gear shift, and other brands have announced theirs. A Tesla has nothing of the kind: TesRev adds the sound of it.

A virtual automatic gearbox

Each TesRev engine has its own gearbox, with 6, 7 or 8 gears depending on the engine. From your Tesla's speed and accelerations, it computes the gear and the revs the engine would be at, and plays them:

• Upshifts: under light load the gearbox shifts early, at low revs; under full throttle in Normal or Sport it holds each gear to the rev limiter, with a short dip in the sound at each shift, like a dual-clutch gearbox.
• Downshifts: when you slow down, it drops gears one by one, with a throttle blip on each, and the tuned engines crackle and pop.
• Kickdown: floor the accelerator to overtake and it drops one or two gears at once, the revs jumping up before the pull.
• Rev limiter: hold full throttle in Normal or Sport and the engine bounces off the limiter before the next shift, as in a real car.

Comfort, Normal or Sport

Like an automatic gearbox with drive modes, TesRev lets you choose how it shifts, in the settings on the Tesla screen. Comfort shifts early and keeps the revs low for a calm drive. Sport holds the gears longer and downshifts sooner, so the engine stays loud and high in the revs. Normal sits in between.

The gearbox reads your Tesla's real accelerations, from the Tesla's GPS or, sharper and without delay, from your phone in a holder. TesRev also knows your Tesla's mass, power and drag (Model 3, Model Y, Model S or Model X), so the same acceleration means more load in a heavy car than in a light one.

Sound only: no jolt

TesRev changes nothing in the way the car drives. It only reads the car's movement and plays sound in the cabin; it never sends anything to the car and cannot cut the motor's torque, so you hear each shift but do not feel the jolt that a real gearbox, or the Ioniq 5 N's simulation, gives. The comparison is on Ioniq 5 N sound in a Tesla.

The gear changes follow your driving: no paddles to pull, nothing to touch once the engine is running.

Hear it

The 20-second clip of each engine on the engines page includes a launch through the gears, downshifts and a kickdown. To get the same in your car, see fake engine sound for Tesla and the setup guide.