Tiptronic gears originated in the year 1990 when sports car giant Porsche introduced it to the Porsche 911. This involves an automatic transmission that is controlled like in a manual transmission. In the traditional automatic gear system it automatically selects the gear which the car should operate where as in a tiptronic gear system it allows the driver to control the gears. The key idea of using Tiptronic gears is to give the drivers the ability to shift between gears precisely to control car’s performance and to give the feeling as if they are driving a manual car.

When the car is driven ordinarily Tiptronic gear system acts more like a conventional automatic transmission system unless the driver activates tiptronic gears. Once Tiptronic is activated the transmission ceases to shift automatically & will rely on the driver to change the gears. In this kind of a system usually paddle shifters are used which is located on the steering wheel. There are two paddle shifters one to put the gear up and the other to put the gear down. These systems use a feature which is like a performance enhancer that shifts gears at higher rounds per minute (RPM) to simulate the feeling of a sports car. Paddle shifting is very common among sports cars which make it fun & enjoyable to drive in any condition. Tiptronic transmission allows the driver a certain measure of discrete control and was implemented using a torque converter like in automatic transmission, however a true Tiptronic transmission is not a computer controlled manual transmission, most of these systems still make some shifts automatically.  Luxury vehicles such as Audi, BMB and Benz have different modes when driving the vehicle, namely Comfort Mode, Sports Mode and Primary Mode. Modern systems use an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) which is able to adapt user’s driving style. In some vehicles a virtual Tiptronic is found with a Constantly Variable Transmission (CVT). CVT’s have arbitrary shift points embedded to the computer to mimic real gears so that the driver can shift between them.

Few advantages of using a Tiptronic gear box include the quicker and consistent sequential shift and a consistent hand location.

But there are few disadvantages as well. A well driven manual vehicle will shift much faster and put a little more torque to the wheels than a tiptronic vehicle so that it accelerates briskly. A manual gear box is also far more economical than tiptronic and sometimes it could become very complex. Despite its complexity tiptronic boxes are quite reliable.

For people living in urban areas who like or need to get out on open roads ,using Tiptronic gears would be the right choice because then the driver could move slowly through city traffic but flick the shifter to the second gate as if he/she is driving a manual vehicle on an open road.