The world's first geared CVT, capable of smoothly changing ratios between zero and high gear - Alter Ego / RatioZero
The world's first geared CVT, capable of smoothly changing ratios between zero and high gear - Alter Ego / RatioZero
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This is just what I want. Something really complicated. Nobody can fix or rebuild it. There’s no extra ones available in case mine goes South because all available goes to the assembly line for new vehicles. I can just sell my vehicle to a scrap yard.
Some.
CAFE standards have been making it difficult for major automakers NOT to go CVT on many vehicles. So now we have transmissions that fail before spark plugs, weird. I’ll take a Mopar three speed torqueflite. Whatever is in my Toyota Avalon works fine, too. Anything more than six speeds is overkill.
I’ll look into this when my 2013 Toyota Tacoma dies around 2040.
I hope this takes off for the people who want autos as the current back of “belt driven” CVTs are horrible. I had a Toyota CH-R rental with one, and it was like you had to kick down to passing gear every time you needed to speed up.
PING!......................
CVT = Continuously variable transmission
The “complex” description got me - I almost got my wife a Nissan Murano because one of her friends had one and she thought she would like it too. I test drove it and the CVT felt different but smooth - I did some research, and at the time, the CVTs were suffering a lot of problems so I got her a Rav4 with a V-6 - which she fell in love with and it held it’s trade-in value over 7 years when we traded in for a 2016 Highlander - which was also a seriously nice vehicle - even nicer than my 2018 Mercedes GLC300 which cost about the same.
We finally decided to go single vehicle - she doesn’t drive as much as she used to - and opted for a 2024 Rav4 with all the bells and whistles...it may outlast us both as we’ve only put about 1K on it in the 2-1/2 months we’ve had it.
The CVT is interesting - but doesn’t seem to offer any real advantages unless one hates to be able to detect a shift - and the new “upgrades” need to be proven over a few years before I would consider one if I were still in the market.
Well, this gives me some concern for mass production:
“complex”
You want something complicated? Consider the Torsen differential gearing as used on the HMMWV. It worked just fine- until it didn’t. It was a bitch to fabricate, and reliability was a little dicey, as it was a real bear to overhaul, the failure usually being the pinion gear and the resulting progressive failure of the seals related to the shaft.
shifty...