Simulating What They Are Taking Away

When you can’t have coffee but want coffee, they serve you decaf. It is simulated coffee. It is a substitute – considered by most people who have to drink it when there’s no coffee to be had a poor substitute. But it is better than nothing, so the saying goes.

The same can be said about Honda’s S+Shift system, which simulates shifts in the Prelude hybrid. That’s not all that’s simulated. You may need a cup of coffee – with caffeine – for this.

The Prelude hybrid is a serial hybrid, meaning the engine is there chiefly to generate electricity to charge up the battery which powers the electric motors that actually move the vehicle. Generators run at a steady speed; they do not rev up and down, which creates a kind of disconnect in a serial hybrid. When the driver pushes down on the accelerator pedal, it does not cause the engine to speed up – as it would in a car that had an engine connected to a transmission that connects to the wheels that turn to make the car go. So Honda developed a simulation for the Prelude hybrid designed to “align the engine noise such that it sounds like it’s revving” in tandem with your right foot’s inputs. Another simulation – Linear Shift Control – conjures the illusion that the transmission which isn’t there (the Prelude hybrid’s electric motors turn the wheels directly) is “shifting” in tandem with the engine “revving.”

As a recent article in Road & Track puts it, “Enter the S+ Shift world” and “you step into Honda’s Narnia of simulated shifting.”

The article isn’t critical, which is remarkable – given it appeared in a publication that, at one time, would have mocked simulated “revving” and “shifting.” 

Instead, there’s this:

“The secret sauce of what makes the new Prelude’s powertrain engaging is all in the fine-tuning and calibration of the electric motor and internal combustion engine,” the writer explains. “While Honda tells me it’s not trying to simulate the sound of any specific engine from its history, it does admit the torque curve and acceleration are meant to mimic a 2.4-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder. That seems perfectly reasonable considering the electric motor doing the real accelerating is a mildly torquey little beast.”

Italics added. Simulation and mimicry. The writer apparently does not see the sad confession implicit in this. Why simulate or mimic what’s not there if what is there is better? When CD players came out, did they mimic and simulate tape decks? Do synchronized manual transmissions mimic the non-synchronized manual transmissions of the past?

Put another way – as regards the Prelude hybrid – something that was good is missing. Well, why not just put it back? That would be the obvious thing to do. Dodge has done just that. It put the engine back in the Charger – so no more need for simulated and mimicked sounds, as were made to emanate from the sound system of the battery-powered Charger.

To be fair, the Prelude hybrid is not a Charger; i.e., it is not the kind of vehicle that has to have an engine that revs and a transmission that shifts (assuming you want people to buy Chargers). Put another way, it’s not a muscle car or even a performance car. It’s a hybrid – and a serial hybrid at that, which is arguably the most sensible kind of hybrid if the object of the exercise is to maximize fuel economy. Using the engine as a generator running steady-state at the “sweet spot” in its power band is better (for gas mileage) than using the engine to propel the vehicle via a transmission. So why not be proud of the serial hybrid powertrain?

Why try to simulate and mimic what has been replaced?

“Honda S+ Shift was developed not only to create the enjoyment of behaving like a (dual-clutch transmission) but also as a technology that enhances the fundamental powertrain values of responsiveness and linearity,” says the hybrid Prelud’s powertrain project leader, Yoshiharu Saito.  

How about the value of reality – as opposed to simulations and mimicry?

“The response and linearity to even slight accelerator input changes during acceleration and deceleration, such as on uphill roads or freeways, are capabilities not previously achieved in conventional hybrids, and we believe this allows drivers to enjoy a true dialogue with the vehicle.”

Italics added.

A “true dialogue with the vehicle”? How about genuine interaction with the vehicle? Honda once worked hard to engineer such interaction between driver and car, as for example via superbly engaging manual transmission shift linkage that controlled driver-shifted manual transmissions. And via screaming 9,000-plus RPM VTEC engines, as in the S2000 roadster and NSX supercar. How does one even have a “dialogue” with a vehicle? I supposed by asking the AI voice assistant to turn up the stereo, to drown out the fake and gay simulations and mimicry.

“Shifting via the steering wheel-mounted shift paddles,” says the R&T writer, “is where the fun really begins. When you pull a paddle for an upshift in S+, Honda says it briefly puts the motor into regeneration mode. This instantly drops the revs of the internal combustion engine and obviously drops the output of the electric motor, simulating the interruption in acceleration you’d expect from upshifting with a traditional transmission. Even the sound is trying to be faithful to the sensation, as Honda uses its Active Sound Control system to play the noises you’d expect to be hearing over the Prelude’s four speakers.”

And they ask me why I drink. 

. . .

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