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

All this may sound complicated, nonetheless it isn’t. In theory, a CVT is far less complex than a normal automatic transmission. A planetary equipment automatic transmission – marketed in the tens of millions this past year – has a huge selection of finely machined shifting parts. It offers wearable friction bands and elaborate digital and hydraulic settings. A CVT like the one explained above has three fundamental shifting parts: the belt and both pulleys.

There’s another advantage: The cheapest and best ratios are also additional apart than they would be in a conventional step-gear tranny, giving the transmission a greater “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 right speed all the time.

As a result, rather than five or six ratios, you get thousands of ratios between your lowest (smallest-diameter Variable Speed Transmission pulley setting) and highest (largest-diameter pulley establishing).

Here’s an example: When you start from an end, the control pc de-clamps the insight pulley so the belt turns the smallest diameter while the result pulley (which would go to the wheels) clamps tighter to help make the belt turn its largest diameter. This creates the cheapest gear ratio (say, 3.0-to-1) for the quickest acceleration. As rate builds, the pc varies the pulley diameters, as conditions dictate, to get the best balance of fuel economic climate and power.