To be clear, I'm no mechanical engineer either! There is some information about ratcheting CVTs (and CVTs in general) here [0], although the page looks a bit s

To be clear, I'm no mechanical engineer either! There is some information about ratcheting CVTs (and CVTs in general) here [0], although the page looks a bit sketchy. From what I've seen, they are not very practical or widely used. Maybe there is a niche where their capabilities and drawbacks are a good fit but I have not come across it. One thing to keep in mind is that these days it's not hard to beat (both on price and power/torque capabilities) sophisticated transmission mechanism (meaning - expensive and containing many fragile mechanical parts) by simply using a larger electric motor with variable speed control and fixed gearing. Torque output at low speeds (which would be the advantage of CVT) is going to be limited by mechanical design and weight constraints of the transmission mechanism. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmission#Ratcheting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmis...