variable speed transmission

Considering the cost savings involved in building transmissions with only three shifting parts, you’ll realize why car companies have become very thinking about CVTs lately.

All this may sound complicated, Variable Speed Transmission nonetheless it isn’t. Theoretically, a CVT is much less complex when compared to a normal automated transmission. A planetary equipment automatic transmission – sold in the tens of millions last year – has a huge selection of finely machined moving parts. It offers wearable friction bands and elaborate electronic and hydraulic settings. A CVT just like the one defined above has three fundamental moving parts: the belt and the two pulleys.

There’s another advantage: The cheapest and maximum ratios are also further apart than they would be in a conventional step-gear tranny, giving the tranny a larger “ratio spread” This implies it is even more flexible.

The engine can always run at the optimum speed for power or for fuel economy, whatever the wheel speed, which means no revving up or down with each gear change, and the ideal rpm for the proper speed constantly.

As a result, rather than five or six ratios, you get an infinite number of ratios between the lowest (smallest-diameter pulley establishing) and highest (largest-diameter pulley establishing).

Here’s a good example: When you start from an end, the control pc de-clamps the insight pulley so the belt turns the tiniest diameter while the result pulley (which would go to the tires) clamps tighter to make the belt change its largest diameter. This generates the lowest gear ratio (say, 3.0-to-1) for the quickest acceleration. As rate builds, the computer varies the pulley diameters, as conditions dictate, for the best balance of fuel economy and power.