How the Koenigsegg CC850 Transmission Is Both Manual and Automatic

Last week, Koenigsegg stunned the automotive world with the reveal of the brand new CC850, which pairs the styling of the very first Koenigsegg street automobile with a drivetrain and chassis derived from the world-beating Jesko. One of probably the most fascinating facets of the CC850 is the transmission, which may function in full computerized mode, or act similar to a traditional six-speed guide transmission full with clutch pedal and lovely gated shifter. How can a transmission be each guide and computerized? At Monterey Car Week, I spent a couple of minutes chatting with Christian von Koenigsegg to determine precisely how this “Engage Shifter System” works.

The revolutionary new transmission relies on the “Light Speed Transmission” nine-speed gearbox discovered within the Koenigsegg Jesko. It’s a fascinatingly unconventional gearbox: Instead of utilizing a standard flywheel and a single or twin clutch, the Koenigsegg transmission places the clutches the place you’d usually discover synchronizers in a guide gearbox. These clutches, six of them in whole, deal with each gear choice (partaking and disengaging as wanted to create 9 distinct drive ratios) and energy transmission. With the LST gearbox and no flywheel, Koenigsegg claims the Jesko powerplant revs quicker than some other production-car engine in historical past.

That gave firm founder Christian von Koenigsegg an thought. “It came about when we started driving the Jesko,” von Koenigsegg advised me on the Koenigsegg show at The Quail, A Motorsport Gathering, a part of Monterey Car Week. “I started thinking, hang on a second, we can do something very interesting with this.”

Since the LST gearbox engages its 9 ahead gear ratios through particular person clutches, von Koenigsegg realized he might create the expertise of driving a traditional guide by placing these clutches underneath the management of the motive force. So the CC850 has a clutch pedal that controls the engagement of the gearbox’s clutches through hydraulic strain.

“That clutch pedal is directly operating the hydraulic pressure of the six clutches in the transmission. You have that absolutely analog clutch feel,” von Koenigsegg advised me. “You can spin the rear tires, stall the car — it’s an analog clutch. It’s just controlling the pressure of the clutches inside the gearbox, because there are no synchros, there are no shift forks or anything. You’re controlling the clutch pressure with your foot.”

The attractive, gated shifter in the course of the CC850’s cockpit is mainly an digital sign system — it has no mechanical connection to the transmission. But a fancy set of sensors can inform the shifter’s actual place always, and the place it’s headed, so the transmission can anticipate which clutches to interact as you full your shift and convey your foot off the clutch pedal. The result’s a semi-electronic, semi-hydraulic shifting system that absolutely replicates the texture of driving a guide.

“It’s an augmented electronic control,” von Koenigsegg mentioned, “but we worked really hard to make it absolutely genuine in its analog feel. So you can’t just pull it out of gear without the clutch unless you rev-match it. You can’t shift down to a too-low gear without forcing it. If you push hard, you feel the resistance of what would be the synchros. If you push the clutch fast, it’s heavier. All those kind of things that make it completely natural feeling, like a manual, but having the upside of different gear ratios in different modes.”

Right: Since the LST gearbox has 9 ahead gear ratios, the CC850 provides two distinct gearsets, one for street driving, the opposite for observe use. In Track mode, you get a really tall 1st gear, with tighter spacing between gears 2 by 6. In Street mode, you get a shorter 1st gear and slightly bit wider spacing by the remainder of the gears, “so you can pull the gears a little bit more,” von Koenigsegg mentioned.

And in the event you don’t wish to do any shifting in any respect, merely throw the shifter into the bottom-right gate, which engages absolutely computerized shifting by all 9 gears. “You just drive it,” von Koenigsegg mentioned. “If you’re tired, in traffic, you go there” — he throws the shifter into Auto — “boom, you’re done. Now you’re somewhere fun, go there” — he slings the shifter into 2nd — “now you need to use your clutch.”

In an unintentional show of simply how authentically this technique works, von Koenigsegg by chance stalled the CC850 on the present stand, easing off the clutch pedal with the parking brake nonetheless engaged. “It can’t be a gaming device,” he mentioned. “It has to be a proper traditional manual with all the pros and cons. This needs to have all the quirks of a manual, otherwise it’s a failure.”

There’s one factor notably lacking from the CC850: paddle shifters. That was a purposeful alternative — if you wish to shift for your self, you need to do it precisely as you’ll in an old style stick-shift automobile, utilizing each arms and each ft to drive.

Thankfully, von Koenigsegg made the CC850 slightly extra predictable from an influence supply standpoint: the twin-turbo V8 is barely detuned in comparison with the Jesko, making 1,385 hp on E85 (down from 1,600). “Because of the manual, with one hand on the steering wheel, you don’t want any surge in the turbo power,” von Koenigsegg advised me. “We shrunk the turbos a little bit, so it gives us the feel of a normally aspirated engine. It’s still an immense performance machine.”

As for the sturdiness of these tiny clutches contained in the gearbox? Von Koenigsegg says, if something, they need to be harder than a traditional guide clutch — the ESS’s clutches are submerged in transmission oil, which gives fixed cooling.

One last element proves simply how a lot consideration to element went into the CC850’s transmission: The shift lever. Sitting on the Koenigsegg present stand, I rowed it by the gears. It’s notchy, mechanical feeling, and satisfyingly exact. Von Koenigsegg advised me the key: the light-weight wooden shift knob has a chunk of tungsten embedded in it, including simply sufficient weight for a satisfying throw.