So I was under the impression you were stating that a lot of cars driving on the road now all have CVVL systems in place which eliminate the throttle. This I contend is not quite the case, but it may not be long in coming.
I have to admit, I had a whole paragraph written up which was going to blast this whole CVVL as dreamland non-sense. Then, to make sure there wasn't really something to it, I Googled it. OK, I was really ignorant regarding these valve control methods. I have a VTEC Honda that I knew did some flibbity flu thing with the valves, but had no idea other car companies had gotten so far ahead.
I have revised the previous paragraph needless to say, since I'da looked quite troggish posting it.
OK, so I've read through some articles (find below) and educated myself on CVVL. I see it is mentioned that there is potential to eliminate the throttle, but, I don't see where anyone has done so completely yet.
I think that car makers want to get a few gazzilion miles under their belts running a CVVL with conventional throttle before they jump in whole hog on letting the CVVL thing take the entire load. I see BMW has a throttle for start up and backup to a Valvetronic failure (limp home), but does indeed open the throttle fully when the engine operates normally.
The main take away I'm getting from all this is that by closing the inlet valve before the piston reaches BDC (er... Bottom Dead Center) you can control the "charge" that way and thus eliminate pumping loss. It appears a small amount of "loss" is good in that it creates a healthy swirl to promote better combustion which off sets the loss and then some.
Interesting stuff,
here,
here,
here, and
here.
Notice - the red "here" is a big file if you have slow internet.
Thanks for bringing all this up. I learned a lot. It's one of the things I love about this Ecomodder family, it really gives us the opportunity to explore all things automotive keeping our minds sharp and growing.