Thread: D-Drive: Revolutionary CVT.

I'm a huge CVT fan and this gets me excited.

YouTube - The D-Drive Infinitely Variable Geared Transmission

Video: Is Steve Durnin's D-Drive the holy grail of infinitely variable transmissions?

Slashdot Hardware Story | Inventor Demonstrates Infinitely Variable Transmission

We can also talk general CVT or whatever. Why do you like them or dislike them?

I like them in theory but most applications fall flat. The current versions sap even more power than a traditional automatic and the control logic used for them is setup to maximise fuel efficiency instead of maxing efficiency and power delivery or providing a switchable "tune" between economy and racing. They also are limited to low torque engines. The most stout version is in the Infiniti FX35 I believe.

I heard the Dodge Caliber with the CVT (not available on the SRT-4) would lock the engine to the most powerful rpm and just let the CVT do its thing if you went to WOT (past the detent in the throtle pedal). That's the closest I've heard of a properly setup CVT.

Cool concept in video... That is about all. Will take a huge revision to get to functional.

Those spur gears are WAY too small to actually transfer any power. Now scale the model up where the spur gears are appropriate to take a realistic load... And the whole thing is too big.

Maybe next iteration will be usable.

the gears are also plastic

that thing is a model... it looks like it there's lots of space so you can see what's going on. i wouldn't judge the real size or performance on a model.

yeah, lots of space not being used. You can make that thing beefy to hold a lot of power and still be very small in size and very light. I can see this being a very big step in cvt type transmissions without the worry of bands and other parts going out. Its very simplistic.

He even said that this is a model, the gears are plastic, they will not be plastic in any real, working prototype.

The idea and video was great and informative. I like it. Infinite torque because gears can be made in pretty much any size. Realistic size is yet to be determined but this is interesting...

Very true

Didn't Nissan extend the warranties on CVT cars! Sound unreliable to me. I had a rented Rouge with a CVT - hated it.

How come?

Here is my 0-60mph:
0MPH Groooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooan. 60MPH

Sigh... You guys miss how it works. I give up.

This is like perpetual motion machine. You can make a model that works, talk it up, and most think it is great. Then you can't ever make it work because of huge design flaw.

This design creates a very large diameter to get ratios and strength.