4 ms·

A CVT can't handle as much torque as a gear-based transmission.

• ferongr 7y ago
  The e-CVT has nothing to do with actual CVTs, it's a planetary "torque split" gearbox that's very robust.
• rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  That could simply be due to the fact that CVTs have never been really used and developed for high performance applications, since car enthusiasts hate them. But there was an F1 car with a CVT before they were banned.
• mywittyname 7y ago
  CVT != eCVT An eCVT is a planetary gearbox which uses a pair of electric motors to control the rotational speed of the ring and planetary gears to achieve an overall gear ratio anywhere between a minimum and maximum ratio. It's largely the same thing as what this two-speed gearbox is, but it leverages electric motors to provide a smooth transition between two ratios, instead of using (presumably) a set of clutches and auxiliary gears to select one of two fixed ratios. This is why this question jumped out at me immediately. On the surface, they are going with a really, really archaic, complex design over a more simple, all-electric design which is ideally suited for their application. I can't help but think ZF started with an eCVT, then retrofited it back to being a two-speed. They must have had a good reason for this. And I wonder if it's a patent/license issue, or if there's some technical reason this wouldn't work. And I'm disappointed the article doesn't go into details on this.