Going where at least two smaller companies have gone pretty much without success, GM has decided to make continuously-variable transmissions (CVTs) available in some of its future product.
The company will also offer 5-speed step ratio transmissions, with both technologies being ready for production by as soon as 2002. GM's intent here with these new automatic transmissions is to increase the fuel economy of its vehicles.
Harvey Won, GM's powertrain engineering director for transmissions, says that, "In line with our focus on areas that deliver real customer benefits, we see enabling fuel economy improvements as the next driver in the evolution of automatic transmission technology."
The concept of a CVT is not new, Won admits, without mentioning attempts by Subaru and Honda to make them work in modern production cars. The Subaru system is gone from North America and the Honda version never made it to Canada.
Won says the major problem with mass-market CVTs was durability, but he believes "There have now been sufficient advancements in metal belt technology and control system sophistication to allow for low torque applications, and we see the industry moving in this direction."
Interestingly, the biggest international survey ever done on the future of transmissions was recently completed by PriceWaterhouseCoopera and it found that the companies over-estimated demand for CVTs. "Wishful thinking," was the way one of the study's analysts put it.