pic: CVT drivetrain

[RogerR]

Originally Posted by mechanicalbrain

actually a CVT is hardly ineficient all it means is nobody has created an efficient one...

the problem with most current CVTs is that they're friction based, which causes losses in efficiency, and can limit the amount of power that you can put through the transmission before it slips. thats not saying that a friction based CVT is the only type of CVT; search the internet and you're bound to turn up some mechanical CVT. in fact, if you do some searching through the chiefdelphi gallery, i'm pretty confident that you'd find one (or more).