Toyota losing the plot?

There are those who hate automatic cars.

That said, it does seem to be adding something ( probably quite complex) which can fail and serves no real function. Never a good idea.

Then, modern cars seem to be getting all kinds of gizmos. We bought an Aygo in Oct ( well we collected then). It was a surprising number of things which buzz and whirr - especially for a small runabout.

Oddly, it has complex things like lane departure warning, automatic braking, ?.. but no delay on the courtesy light.

Despite autos being commonplace in the US, there's a minority who yearn for a 'stick shift'. Presumably this is a relatively cheap way to give them what they want (a more engaged driving experience) without having to re-engineer very much of the car. It can also be a feature you can selectively enable - use auto for your commute to work, manual at a track day.

You could imagine it being another feature that you select when ordering your new car. And perhaps the parts might easily be swapped over, so you could add this 'manual gearbox' to your existing car for a couple of hours in the workshop.

It's not a meaningful performance feature, but then people pay good money for having exhausts that sound a particular way and they aren't performance features either.

Theo

Unless it?s accompanied by a engine noise synthesiser it?s still not going to sound anything like a manual gearbox car, all it?s going to do is roll off the power in stages and require a ?gear change? to restore the power.

I suspect it?ll never get further than a patent application.

Tim

I remember one CVT equipped car (rubber band drive) who used software to make it work like fixed gears.

I've never heard of any auto that can be a true manual complete with clutch pedal. Being able to select a gear manually on an auto is as old as autos themselves.

I wonder whether it makes a simulated crunching noise if you engage a gear without depressing the clutch fully.

But it?s neither an auto or a manual. It?s a fixed gear with a cunning way to cripple the power of the motor to simulate the poor power characteristics of an ICE producing a ?virtual gearbox?

It?s mind-bogglingly stupid.

Tim

I wondered about it being used to sell EVs: get potential customers to drive a demonstrator with the simulated gearbox engaged; then drive it without.

I?m curious, which car was that?

Fiat made an ?automatic? system ( note quotes) which was used on the Ducato ( maybe other vehicles). I believe it had a clutch * which was electronically operated. I only ever saw bad things written about it, at least in motorhomes. Fortunately I read them before buying a MH with one.

• a clutch much the same as a normal one - flywheel, clutch plate, clutch cover/pressure plate, release bearing, etc. I assume an actuator operating the lever on the release bearing.

Sorry, can't remember. Not really of much interest to me. Although I've heard some complain about the way a CVT can stay at near constant engine revs when accelerating. But whether this was after buying one an living with it for a while, I dunno.

Smiths made a similar system in the 1950s. Centrifugal clutch (for starting off) which disengaged when you touched the gear lever to change gear on the ordinary box. A mixture of electrics and vacuum servo operation.

The auto on my car is a twin clutch type. Sort of twin gearboxes 1,3,5 and

7 in one box, 2,4 and 6 in the other. Under normal acceleration from rest it pre-selects the next gear and swaps the clutches to change gear. It works beautifully in practice. And virtually as efficient as a manual box.

The only criticism is it's not quite so easy to maneuver when parking etc due to the auto clutch.

The Honda Jazz Hybrid (chain, rather than rubber band, but still continously variable) has a pair of paddles that let you select seven different ratios, although the software won't let you be silly.

It's a video game. People pay good money for the video game experience even though it's ultimately pointless. Making driving 'fun' like this (FSVO 'fun' that is in the eye of the beholder) does not make the drive any more efficient, but if it isn't complicated to fit and people want to pay for it, why not let them?

At this stage it's just an idea, maybe it will fly with the public and maybe it won't. If it doesn't, they haven't lost very much.

After all, a lot of 'petrolhead' stuff (engine remapping, tuning, lowering, fancy exhausts, etc) is equivalently pointless when getting from A to B.

Theo

Thank you.

Our Smart car had strange system. It had what looked like a normal gear stick with ( from memory) 5 gears plus reverse. No clutch. Ours had paddles

- an option on the better models. There was also a button on the gear stick. If you pressed it, you were driving in automatic. However, the number of gears in manual and automatic mode was different. You could flip from manual to auto on the move, at any speed.

I found it quite good.

They all do it and as far as I know none of them have a ludicrous mode that Coulthard tested in Williams F1 car and instantly knocked several seconds off his lap times.

Maximum acceleration is at maximum power. Peak torque corresponds to peak acceleration in a fixed gear but the acceleration at peak power in the gear below that is far higher.

So when you floor the accelerator pedal what should a CVT do? You have sent a signal that you want everything it's got. It should give you every thing it's got. That means winding the engine speed up to peak power rpm and then continuously adjusting the gear ratio to hold it at that speed.

A normal manual gearbox just gives you what the engine can deliver at the current engine speed and you have to sit and wait for revs to rise as the car accelerates and flatly farts. If you do this at 45 mph in top gear you can be waiting a very long time for the car to get a move on. If you want more you have to predict the need and change gear. Rule of thumb if in doubt change down 2.

So there were 2 objections to CVT gearboxes.

First there was lag while the engine wound up to speed. The extra power the engine made is initially used to speed up the engine and not the car. The fact that with a normal gearbox you should be changing gear during this time just isn't allowed for.

Second. Once wound up, the peak engine power is delivered to the wheels, like all the hounds of hell let lose. It didn't change down 2 gears, it went down 3.3. "Well I just wanted to go a little faster, I didn't want Mach 2!". The only way to ask for "a little faster" is a smaller input on the throttle, instead of mash it and lift off when you have enough.

So all CVT on the market pretend to be fixed ratio gear boxes. That means the belt/chain/disc is always running on the same parts of the cones/toroid. That makes tracks and the CVT fails. There's not supposed to be any contact as the motion is transferred by a non Newtonian fluid that becomes solid like silly putty when under shear loads.

Well that's a toy. It's right up there with furry dice.

Who in their tiny little mind would cut the power when accelerating by doing a simulated gear change?

I can see lawsuits, "unintended loss of power".

The only CVT I've driven was an early DAF van. Not belonging to me, I'd add. Noisy at the best of times. And incredibly wearing if attempting to keep up with the traffic.

Are there any CVTs still available new? Do remember the Focus one had a short life so much in demand as a used spare from a crashed car.

While there are paddles, I think the 2012-2019 Yaris CVT had a continuous ratio if you didn't use them:

what I remember driving it there was no fake gear changing, but it was a bit sluggish when you floored it. The hybrid version is much better.

Toyota I think have mostly switched to hybrids. The Aygo was a holdout of the 'multi-mode transmission' - ie computer controlled manual, but the new Aygo X mini-SUV does come with a CVT. I'm not sure they're shipping yet.

The Honda Jazz is now hybrid only. Nissan has the Xtronic on some Qashqai.

I think the market for CVTs is shrinking though - being nibbled away by hybrids and EVs. Seems like it'll become more niche, perhaps at the small and cheap end of the market.

Theo

I'd say the costs of a robotised manual box/auto clutch must have come down, as they are appearing in cheaper cars now. And those boxes should be as long lasting as a manual, and as efficient, so no MPG penalty.

I'd guess that might be a new niche for it. Bigger/more expensive cars will go EV, as will tiny city cars with limited range. Leaves a gap of small-ish and cheap cars - the Fiesta, Ka and friends. They might be described as student cars - they can't cost very much to buy, the insurance can't be too much for a young person, but they still get used for long trips so going EV doesn't really work for the moment as you'd need a too expensive battery to get the range. A fraction of those will want to be automatics.

The top end of that gap will be nibbled away by hybrids (which perform better but are more expensive). And the rest will be whatever cheap and cheerful auto transmission they can come up with - probably those robot-clutch things, but maybe the occasional CVT.

Theo

Nissan sell them. Not got a very good reputation in US.

Audi used them but I'm not sure if they still sell them.

Most have been supplanted by DCT.