A few weeks ago I wrote about the Abacus Drive, a new rotary transmission that could find its way into vehicles very soon. The Abacus was an evolutionary step forward from harmonic gears. They do similar things in similar ways and the idea of both of them is to increase or decrease the gear ratios available and do it in the smallest, most robust package. In 1957 Clarence … [Read more...]
Rotary Transmissions
Road and Track magazine recently ran an article about the Abacus Transmission, a new development that was described as the first new rotary transmission since the 1960s. The idea came about whilst engineers were looking for a better and cheaper solution to providing a transmission that suits modern electric motors - i.e. a transmission to help an electric car perform … [Read more...]
Could an Automatic Gearbox Shifter Cause an Accident?
I have been reading reports from the US recently that suggest that manufacturers have been going too far in making things easy for the driver, when it comes to using an automatic gearbox! The whole concept was to make it easier, so to take it a step further is quite a feat. In the US, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has received hundreds of … [Read more...]
Transaxles
A transaxle is the combination of a differential and gearbox in one unit. What this does is to reduce the packaging of the components into one unit rather than two. So in effect it is a transmission axle or "transaxle". In a traditional rear drive car, the engine is at the front with the gearbox connected at the rear of the block converting the power delivery through a prop … [Read more...]
Overdrive
The concept of “overdrive” has been around for decades and in theory is the ability of the car to use a gear ratio that allows the engine to be running at a lower rpm to that of the road speed which in turn means fuel savings when cruising at motorway speeds, for example, and therefore lower engine wear and noise. Mechanically, the overdrive unit is a secondary gearbox that … [Read more...]