Porsche Patents a Dual-Clutch That Fakes a Manual

Germany’s patent office published Porsche application DE 10 2025 109 563 A1 on 17 September 2026, covering a dual-clutch gearbox that can run as an automatic, a sequential, or an H-pattern with a third pedal. Julian Philip Stocks of Stuttgart is named as inventor, and Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG of Stuttgart is the applicant. The official title is a motor vehicle with a combustion engine and an automatic transmission.

The text says the drive unit can be a combustion engine alone or a combustion engine plus at least one electric machine. That hybrid clause is the load-bearing one. The 911 T-Hybrid already hides its traction motor in the eight-speed PDK, so a conventional clutch and stick have nowhere to sit.

The Filing Calls the Gearbox Automatic

Stocks filed the application on 13 March 2025 at the German Patent and Trademark Office, under class F16H 59/04 for transmission controls. Publication came more than a year later as an Offenlegungsschrift, which means the idea is now public, not that a factory has tooled it. The abstract describes three shift modes on one automatic, and it specifies a dual-clutch with two partial gearboxes and two clutches.

The background is unusually frank for a legal document. Drivers who learned on manuals, it says, still rate automatics as less sporty and less emotional, even when the box is a dual-clutch and even when it offers a sequential mode. The proposed fix is not a new gearbox architecture. It is a third foot pedal and a lever that can be taught to behave like a stick.

THE 2025-2026 PAPER TRAIL

1. 13 March 2025: Stocks files DE 10 2025 109 563.9 in Stuttgart for a motor vehicle with a combustion engine and an automatic transmission.
2. 3 July 2026: Ferrari unveils the 12Cilindri Manuale, a limited run that puts a clutch pedal and gated lever on an eight-speed dual-clutch.
3. 13 August 2026: Porsche Cars North America puts a real six-speed back on the Carrera S and Timo Resch says the T-Hybrid still cannot take that kind of manual.
4. 17 September 2026: The German office publishes Stocks’ dual-clutch application, including the hybrid electric-machine clause.

An earlier Porsche application had already described a shift-by-wire lever that could switch between an automatic gate and an H-pattern. This later filing is the bigger claim: the same dual-clutch, a third pedal, and a dedicated mode in which that pedal is supposed to do the job of a clutch.

Why the T-Hybrid Has No Room for a Stick

Porsche built the current hybrid 911 around the gearbox, not around a clutch disc. A permanently excited synchronous motor is fully integrated into the PDK case, shares the gearbox oil circuit, and couples to the crankshaft through the dual-mass flywheel. Porsche’s own drive notes put the electric motor inside the gearbox housing at 286 mm across and 55 mm long. It still makes 150 Nm from idle and up to 40 kW (54 PS), and in generator mode it can push 40 kW back into the battery.

T-HYBRID HARDWARE IN THE PDK

• The motor: A 286 mm by 55 mm disc, 150 Nm and 40 kW (54 PS), also doing starter and alternator duty.
• The gearbox: A strengthened eight-speed dual-clutch with tougher clutches, gear sets, and bevel drive for the extra torque.
• The pack: A 1.9 kWh, 400 V battery about the size of a conventional 12-volt unit, plus an eTurbo rated at up to 11 kW (15 PS).
• The output: Combined 398 kW (541 PS) and 610 Nm, with 3.0 seconds to 100 km/h and a 312 km/h top speed on the Carrera GTS.

Without the electric assist, the 3.6-litre boxer is rated at 357 kW (485 PS) and 570 Nm. The motor is not a bolt-on helper sitting beside a conventional clutch. Take out the PDK and the traction motor goes with it, which is why the GTS and Turbo S hybrids are two-pedal cars. The T-Hybrid performance hybrid layout was designed as a light, motorsport-derived boost system, and that choice locked the 911 into a dual-clutch transaxle.

Resch said as much in August, after Monterey Car Week. The technology setup in place now, and a manual transmission like the Carrera S MT package, “are not compatible.” He added that Weissach never stops thinking, and that he would not be surprised if the engineers found a solution, “but it probably will not be a combination that you see here of a manual transmission.” The application Stocks filed in March 2025 reads like that workaround: keep the dual-clutch, keep the motor in the case, and teach the cabin to feel like a stick.

North America Already Has Seven Real Manuals

The same month Resch closed the door on a hybrid stick, Porsche opened a different one. The 2027 911 Carrera S with MT Package is a six-speed Carrera S for North America, rear-wheel drive only, using the Carrera T’s gearbox behind the S engine. Coupe MSRP is $167,100 and the Cabriolet is $181,000, both before a $2,350 delivery, processing, and handling fee. Deliveries are due by the end of 2026.

The MT car makes 473 hp from a 3.0-liter twin-turbo flat-six. The coupe weighs 3,327 lbs, 11 lbs above the Carrera T coupe. Porsche quotes 3.9 seconds to 60 mph and 191 mph, with PASM Sport lowering the car 10 mm and center-lock wheels saving more than 17 lbs. Walnut sits on the shift knob. This is a mechanical six-speed, not a dual-clutch in costume.

THREE-PEDAL 911S ON SALE IN NORTH AMERICA

• Carrera T coupe and Cabriolet: The entry stick-shift pair, sharing the six-speed now used on the S MT.
• Carrera S MT coupe and Cabriolet: The new 473 hp, North America-only pair with rear-axle steering and Sport Chrono as standard.
• GT3, GT3 Touring, and GT3 S/C: The top analog cars, still sold with a conventional manual behind a motorsport engine.

That is seven variants with a conventional manual, which is the choice Resch can still offer because those cars do not carry the T-Hybrid motor in the transaxle. He used the MT launch to draw a hard line about what that pedal is for.

While some brands are abandoning the manual, we are proud to continue offering three pedals in a range of products that speaks to different use cases. Managing a clutch and shift lever isn’t for everyone, but for the drivers who want it there really is no substitute.

Timo Resch, President and CEO, Porsche Cars North America, 13 August 2026

He also said Porsche will try to keep offering manuals as long as the law allows and as long as buyers ask, with demand seen well into the next decade. The patent does not contradict that promise so much as reveal its limit. Where the engine is a plain flat-six, Weissach will still bolt in a stick. Where the motor lives in the PDK, the substitute is the thing being patented.

How the Three Modes Would Work

The filing does not convert the dual-clutch into a set of sliding-mesh gears. It adds a control layer. A steering-wheel control, with dashboard or console alternatives, selects the mode. A transmission control unit reads the lever, the paddles, and the third pedal, then talks to the engine control unit. Gear changes still happen inside the dual-clutch.

THE THREE SHIFT MODES IN THE FILING

In automatic, the third pedal is a drivetrain disconnect, closer to a rolling-stop control than to a clutch you stall with. Sequential is the PDK many 911 drivers already know. Only the third mode asks the driver to coordinate foot and hand the way a manual does, with the lever splitting the dual-clutch’s ratios across side-by-side gates. The diagrams show a six-speed H, which is the same count Ferrari chose to expose on its eight-speed dual-clutch.

A clutch pedal on a dual-clutch is still a dual-clutch. The lever can be weighted, gated, and satisfying, and the hardware underneath remains two wet clutches and a computer. That is the objection this kind of filing always meets, and it is a fair one. The gesture can be honest while the gearbox stays automatic. Buyers who want a missed shift to cost them something will treat it as theater. Buyers who want three pedals on a hybrid 911 will treat it as the only layout the motor in the bellhousing allows.

Ferrari Put a Similar System on Sale in July

Maranello did not wait for a patent to age. On 3 July 2026 it showed the 12Cilindri Manuale, a 1,499-car series that keeps the eight-speed dual-clutch and adds a lever, a gate, and a clutch-by-wire pedal. Ferrari’s own description of the Manuale By-Wire clutch-by-wire system is blunt about the split: the engine and transmission stay the same, and the innovation sits in the interface. Manual mode uses the first six gears and reverse. Automatic mode remains available, including the extra ratios the H-gate does not show.

Correct synchronisation yields a smooth, precise gear change; otherwise, it may become more difficult, resulting in a jerk or a stall.

Ferrari, 12Cilindri Manuale technical note, 3 July 2026

The lever module is machined from solid metal and weighs less than 3.5 kg. Hall-effect sensors read the gate. A preload spring, cam, and roller give the pedal a mechanical load curve so the feel is not a video-game spring. The V12 still revs to 9,500 rpm and is rated at 830 cv. Poor clutch work can stall the car. Software still blocks a destructive downshift. Koenigsegg’s CC850 sits in a different family: a multi-clutch, multi-shaft box, not a dual-clutch wearing a gate.

Porsche’s application is the same species as Ferrari’s production car, not Koenigsegg’s. It is an interface patent on top of a dual-clutch, written so it can cover a hybrid. Ferrari used that trick on a front-engine V12 with no traction motor stuffed into the gearbox. Porsche needs it because the 911 that makes 541 PS already used that volume for a 55 mm electric disc.

The Application Stops at the Patent Office

Nothing in DE 10 2025 109 563 A1 assigns the system to a model year, a GT3, or a GTS. It does not quote a price, a weight, or a shift time. It does not say the third pedal can stall a T-Hybrid the way Ferrari’s pedal can stall a 12Cilindri. It says a dual-clutch can be driven like a manual if the cabin grows a pedal and the lever learns an H. Until Weissach signs a production brief, that is all it is.

The orderable three-pedal 911 in North America remains the Carrera S MT at $167,100 before fees, plus the T and GT3 cars that never took the hybrid transaxle. The GTS and Turbo S stay on the eight-speed PDK with the motor in the case. Stocks’ filing is the paper answer to Resch’s August problem, published after the real six-speed had already gone back on sale. A clutch you can order still moves gears in those cars. The patented one would move commands.