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Almost 20 years ago, Volkswagen revolutionised automatic transmission with the introduction of the DSG gearbox. But in fact, VW were not the first to come up with this groundbreaking technology. As early as in the 1980s, Porsche had developed what they called the PDK (Porsche Doppelkupplung), while Audi also used roughly the same type of transmission in their Audi S1 Quattro rally car. At the time, the technology was not fully developed and therefore not ready for mass production for ordinary cars.
This did not happen until 2003, when Volkswagen introduced the groundbreaking six-speed DSG gearbox, which, with its lightning-fast gear changes, offered far better driving comfort than had been seen so far.
The DSG gearboxes entered actual mass-production from around 2007. In the following years, the six-speed DSG gearbox (dual clutch) was introduced in a number of the Volkswagen Group's brands (Golf, Passat, Touran and others).
Today, the DSG gear system is found in a large number of Skoda, Seat and Audi models, and the gearbox is so widespread that more than 50 per cent of all Volkswagen customers choose a model with a DSG gearbox over a manual one.

How do DSG gears work?

The DSG gearbox (Direkt Schalt Getriebe) is a mixture of manual and automatic gears.
There is no clutch pedal in the car, but the gearbox has what is called a dual clutch. This offers extra driving comfort and a smoother gear change, making gear changes almost unnoticeable.
The clutch works by clutch 1 handling the odd gears while clutch 2 handles the even gears and the reverse gear.
The system is extremely refined, and with two clutches, the gearbox is constantly ready to make the next gear change before disengaging from the current gear.
If, for example, the car is in fifth gear, sixth gear is already in the waiting position. It is not active yet, but as soon as the optimal time for a gear shift occurs, the clutch automatically opens on the fifth gear, while the second clutch closes and pre-activates the sixth gear.
An optimised DSG gearbox thus delivers a smooth, super fast and almost imperceptible gear shift.
A control unit that monitors the engine revs and identifies whether the driver is accelerating or braking determines which gear is to be activated next.
The gear shift takes place in 1/100 of a second and the traction is constant. Therefore, it is almost not noticeable when the gearbox switches smoothly between two gears in a gliding operation.