Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Tele man
How do you like the CVT vs. traditional manual or automatic?
(Our Prius has CVT)
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I don't know about the Mirage, but I recently rented an Altima with a CVT and hated it. While going down even modest hills, the engine would rev to 3000+ rpms presumably for engine braking. This was surprising and disconcerting to my wife (as a passenger) who would rarely even notice this sort of thing. Acceleration seemed anemic for the rated power of the engine. There seemed to be no connection between what the engine was doing and what the wheels were doing. In my opinion, it takes the worst characteristics of a conventional slush-box and exaggerates them.
I have a hard time calling Prius' Power Split Device a CVT. At it's heart, it is a fixed planetary gear set that is varied by two motor-generators and the ICE. You vary the ratio not by altering the ratio of the tranny, but by changing the RPMs of the motors. This really has no similarity to a true CVT behind a single motor.