- Brace yourselves: There’s a new type of transmission that could upset the world order
- Its inventors describe it as a CVT with gears instead of mushy bands
- The team is looking to either license RatioZero or sell the technology
It’s not always easy to get those of us who write about cars to agree on anything — except continuously variable transmissions. Sure, they are tremendously efficient, as proven by the myriad of fuel-sipping vehicles using CVTs, and the fact most of them outperform a manual transmission in terms of fuel economy in an equivalent vehicle. The Nissan Sentra is a great example of this phenomenon, rated at 9.4 L/100 km in town with a stick, but only 7.3 when equipped with a CVT.
None of these arguments make a CVT any more fun to drive, nor do anything to assuage customers with preconceived notions that this type of transmission is unreliable, even if empirical data shows marked improvement in that area.
A company in Italy may have a solution, and it involves a CVT that uses gears instead of rubber belts. Wait, what?
Its inventors call it the RatioZero transmission, a gearbox which allegedly handles higher levels of torque than a traditional CVT and an ability to idle without the need for a clutch or torque converter. At present, the prototype is strictly for smaller applications like e-bikes, but it’s designed to scale up to larger machines such as motorcycles and passenger vehicles.
At the risk of speaking out of turn (“Dammit, I’m a gearhead, Jim, not an engineer!”) it seems like the RatioZero transmission deploys a trio of planetary gears mounted on adjustable links, which the latest patent describes as using short chains instead of a rigid link as part of the overall four-bar linkage. This setup is used to shift input power from its outer ring gear to rotational force on the output shaft through a smaller ring gear. The video above does a much better job of explaining, as does the RatioZero website.
Where does the tech currently stand? The company itself says the idea is “running the last mile” at present, moving from advanced prototype stage to full maturity. Its aim for the project is to sell the patent and relative know-how to big manufacturers and tier-one suppliers. The group has been working on this idea since 2018, and is, like most outfits, actively seeking new investors.
Sign up for our newsletter Blind-Spot Monitor and follow our social channels on X, Tiktok and LinkedIn to stay up to date on the latest automotive news, reviews, car culture, and vehicle shopping advice.