Photo: Bosch
The last time Ford put a CVT in a nonhybrid car, the effort wasn’t too appreciated by the drivers. If you remember the sorry Five Hundred full-size sedan from 2007, it’s easy to understand why that transmission and the so-called Fairlane 500 and Galaxie 500 spiritual successor were epic fails.
One of the main reasons why the Ford Five Hundred and Mercury Montego were so bad was the CVT box itself. To make a long story short, it was a half-assed product co-developed by a Ford-ZF joint venture that manufactured it in an assembly plant located in Ohio.
Forget the age-old problem of keeping the revs too high for too much time without delivering power to the driven wheels. The continuously variable tranny employed by those nameplates wasn’t too good at saving fuel, although CVTs are said to reduce fuel consumption by as much as 7 percent in city traffic.
Since the engine is constantly kept at its utmost efficient operating point, urban stop-and-go traffic situations are the specialty of CVT gearboxes... in theory. After this sour adventure, Ford decided to leave CVT units only for their plug-in hybrid cars. Even the 2015 Ford Mondeo Hybrid has one of those.
But according to an interview with AutomotiveNews, global product development chief Raj Nair said that “they [CVTs] are getting better. And we are taking another look, particularly in the low torque applications.”
Considering Nissan can make its CVT mimick an automatic transmission’s gear shifts, then maybe Ford can replicate what the Nissan Xtronic CVT with D-Shift Logic can do or even improve this technology.
Forget the age-old problem of keeping the revs too high for too much time without delivering power to the driven wheels. The continuously variable tranny employed by those nameplates wasn’t too good at saving fuel, although CVTs are said to reduce fuel consumption by as much as 7 percent in city traffic.
Since the engine is constantly kept at its utmost efficient operating point, urban stop-and-go traffic situations are the specialty of CVT gearboxes... in theory. After this sour adventure, Ford decided to leave CVT units only for their plug-in hybrid cars. Even the 2015 Ford Mondeo Hybrid has one of those.
But according to an interview with AutomotiveNews, global product development chief Raj Nair said that “they [CVTs] are getting better. And we are taking another look, particularly in the low torque applications.”
Considering Nissan can make its CVT mimick an automatic transmission’s gear shifts, then maybe Ford can replicate what the Nissan Xtronic CVT with D-Shift Logic can do or even improve this technology.
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