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

All of this may sound complicated, but it isn’t. In theory, a CVT is far less complex when compared to a normal automatic transmission. A planetary equipment automatic transmission – marketed in the tens of millions last year – has hundreds of finely machined moving parts. It offers wearable friction bands and elaborate digital and hydraulic handles. A CVT just like the one defined above has three fundamental moving parts: the belt and both pulleys.

There’s another advantage: The cheapest and highest ratios are also additional apart than they might be in a conventional step-gear transmitting, giving the transmission a greater “ratio spread” This means it is even more flexible.

The engine can always run at the optimum speed for power or for fuel economy, regardless of the wheel speed, this means no revving up or down with each gear change, and the ideal rpm for the right speed on a regular basis.

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

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