ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,296,687, issued on May 13, was assigned to TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan).
"Electric vehicle having a simulated manual transmission" was invented by Yoichiro Isami (Mishima, Japan), Yoshio Itou (Susono, Japan), Hiroyuki Amano (Susono, Japan), Tatsuya Imamura (Okazaki, Japan), Akiko Nishimine (Susono, Japan), Hiroaki Ebuchi (Hadano, Japan) and Hiroaki Kodera (Susono, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An electric vehicle includes a shift lever and a clutch pedal for simulating manual gear changes of a traditional vehicle equipped with an internal combustion engine and manual transmission, and includes a controller for controlling t...