CVT, which teams are planning on using them for next year?

[ahecht]

Originally Posted by NoodleKnight

Actually CVT's are in a lot of cars today. The new Toyota Prius Hybrid uses a CVT transmission, so does the Mitsubishi Colt Plus, and Ford's Escape Hybrid uses a CVT. I don't exactally see how constant grinding = CVT wearing down faster. Straight-cut gears in a gearbox grind more than a CVT do.

I hate to debate this every time CVTs come up, but all the cars using the Toyota Hybrid System (this includes the Prius and the Ford Escape) do not have CVTs. The initial Prius advertising did say that the car had a CVT, but after a lawsuit they removed any mention of the term CVT from their advertising. The Hybrid System uses a single speed planetary transmission that is very similar to the ThunderChicken's CCT.

However, there are quite a few CVT cars on the market now in the US, including the Ford 500, Focus, and Freestyle (say that 5 times fast!), the Audi A4 and A6, Nissan Murano, MINI Cooper, the Saturn VUE, the Honda Insight and Civic, and the Chrysler Sebring and PT Cruiser. In fact, Nissan has said that they want to sell 1 million vehicles equipped with continuously variable transmissions annually by 2007.

Incidently, I came across a really cool LEGO CVT. I don't know how well it works, but I guess anything's possible.