Hyundai, Kia Benchmarking 1962 Schwinn Varsity, Working on 10-Speed Automatic

Nissan CVT tuning is great.
Next advance that's needed is a dual clutch CVT.
I think Nissan's current CVT still uses a energy losing torque converter.

This is getting silly, and to me is just more proof that Nissan's CVT is one of the most poorly marketed pieces of technology on the auto market today.

" 10AT...At what point to we just go ahead and say the CVT crowd was right?"

When it's shown that CVT's can work in RWD applications with high amounts of torque.

toroidal cvt is the answer to rwd high-torque applications... Nissan motors has them for the Infiniti brand in Japan g35 version

@bluejuke:

That's still not alot of torque. A G37 has 270 ft. lbs. A Genesis 5.0 R-Spec has 376 ft. lbs.

What can be spoken can be done: Eventually, there will be an infinitely variable automatic transmission that is NOT a CVT. I would venture to guess that early engineering on this is already in progress.

The big question is: Will these mult-multi-geared transmissions, in combination with much more efficient IC engines, be enough to stem the tide of electric cars?

Perhaps someday there will be cars with drivetrains incorporating both gasoline and electric motors.

"Perhaps someday there will be cars with drivetrains incorporating both gasoline and electric motors."

yes, perhaps. lol

threemopars is absolutely correct. CVTs operate based upon friction belts, they simply cannot accommodate high torque or those belts start to slip. As of right now, there is no CVT in production that could be paired with a V8 engine. Who knows what Nissan has up there sleeve, though.

Need one that goes to 11. It's 1 better.

Hold on there mercedesfan, it seems to me that any manual transmission car also operates based upon friction - the friction between the clutch disk and the flywheel. And, in fact most modern automatics also depend upon friction between the internal clutch disks/bands and the planetaries. And if they have a lock up torque converter they also depend upon a friction clutch there.

A CVT depending upon friction really isn't an issue. There are others, but as stated elsewhere, its more of an engineering/cost reduction issue than it is of a fundamental inability to do the job.

Oh, and BTW, I hate CVTs. Can't stand 'em - even Nissan's which is probably the best of breed right now.

I'm sure people not yet born won't share my ingrained and learned prejudices about how an engine and transmission combo should sound and feel and a CVT won't be a big deal to them. But for me - no way.

...and to think most slushbox drivers don't even know what a gear is. To them, it's "forward", "reverse" and "park".

Gimme three pedals and a stick.

Saw an old Varsity just the other day. Got mine in '70. Probably never used more than 4 gear combos.

Next they'll put a 10-speed in a manual - twice as many as the sweet spot.

If there is a double-digit % efficiency increase over a 6-speed auto, I'd be surprised.

mercedesfan: The current generation of CVTs aren't simple friction belts. They're actually more like push chains. And as another poster stated - it isn't hp/torque limitations that prevents car manufacturers from pairing a CVT with a V8 (they were successfully developed for F1 before being banned), but it simply an application decision.

Most consumers who want a V8 do not care as much about optimal efficiency. Pairing a CVT with 4-cylinder and 6-cylinder engine with an fuel-economy emphasis makes more market sense.

give me more speeds over a cvt any day. After having driven an charger with 8 speed and 3.6L it is a night and day difference over the old 5 speed.

billt9: I don't think you understand how a CVT operates. A "dual-clutch CVT" will do nothing for a CVT transmission, since there wouldn't be anything for the second-clutch to do - there aren't any gears to spin up in anticipation of being engaged.

The next generation of CVTs are already here - they have an additional OD gear that provides more efficiency at high speeds.

38 YEARS OF OBSESSIVE STUDY, I KNOW MY STUFF. SO READ ON....
As a Antique/ Vintage bicycle collector, student of anything old and mysterious cycling related. With an interest and long study and collector of lost, buried, mooted, forced out by higher powers bicycle gears and transmissions systems and how they relate to the auto industry of today. The forbidden magic of bicycle gears...........
I thought it odd to run across the mention of: " the 1962 Schwinn Varsity" refrence to the title of this thread The 1962 Schwinn Varasity mixing it up with "Hyundai, Kia Benchmarking a 10 speed automatic." What?
What was in the head of the person who wrote this?

The 1962 Schwinn Varsity. Why is that in this thread? Um... heres the story. The Schwinn Varsity originally came with single speed and two speed New Departure hubs. The New Departure company ended their cycle gears per se with a clunky three speed that was worse than the world famous British Sturmey- Archer 3 speed. New Departure died after the three speed.
That was it. their name removed from view of the American public. It might as well be completely dead. We thought it was, after not seeing their name any more, on a common item like a bicycle.

New Departure got complacent and didn't tool up to make derailers and free wheels. Offering nothing more innovative than a too -expensive three speed and no Schwinn Varsity was ever offered with anything more then a two speed D.D. 2 SPEED
The Americans messed up, didn't plan, washed out, left the scene of bicycle gears at this point in the 1950's. The Mantle passed. American bikes died in the 1950's. really the soul died then. The body went on longer as a possessed zombie.

The French Huret Alvit was a breakthrough product with their derailer gear. So bicycle transmissions on Schwinns were French with also French derailer cluster freewheels by ATOM. The French ruled until Huret refused to study metalurgy and they refused to improve the freewheel and chose to replace one noisy defective freewheel pawl with another defective part. No improvement just placate the customer. Schwinn. Well the customer kept coming back annoyed and this caught Schwinn's eye who asked Shimano to fix the noisey freewheel pawl issue the French would not re-design and fix.

Mr. Shimano was a mole, buried in Schwinn's Company acting as a translator. He spoke 10 minutes of speech for every 5 minutes of spoken speech uttered by Schwinn. He was making side deals, stealing Schwinn company business and he leaped at the chance to go to school, study metallurgy and offer his design of an improved freewheel pawl cluster that didn't chatter and cause the customer to bring the whole bike back to the shop.
For Schwinn this meant (the shop) mechanics didn't have to be re-paid by Schwinn for their time to replace the part and also the cost of the part itself. It was money.
Shimano fixed this by offering their own free wheel part. They studied what was wrong with the French Freewheels and fixed the problem. They fixed it by getting rid of the French! ( Shimano made freewheels, and sold them, en mass to American Schwinn who was happy the problem ignored by the French, was now fixed)

This was the very beginning of the Japanese takeover of the promising and lucritive World bicycle market. ( Shimano's take over of Fishing market away from American Shakespere, e.t.c. is another similar story...)
Ok, so Japanese Shimano stole the freewheel business from Henry Juy Simplex/ French Huret and Atom freewheel and soon the whole bicycle gear transmission business. they owned it with bad ass, reliable well made, product. It took 20 plus more years to over take French Derailer market, Huret stayed on for awhile but the Shimano, Sun Tour " Sun was rising!!"

Japanese Shimano and Japanese Sun Tour possessed Mojo and Kicked ass. Sun Tour faded away years later on.
Shimano took over the bicycle (and fishing) World. basically.

The Schwinn Varsity bicycle (with an 8 speed derailer) was a historic first.

For Bicycles it was quite important and new. The Schwinn Varisty is considered the first 10 speed bicycle.
The four speed freewheel rear cluster became a 5 speed cluster very quickly. With a changer in front switching between two larger front chainrings it was 4 in back with 2 in front making the 1962 Varsity an 8 speed.
The next year or so, it was 5 in back with two in front thus, the 10 speed bike was born.

The Schwinn steel frame Varsity was strongly welded. rims were steel and strong. The headset and front bearings were sturdy. The sturdy steel Ashtabula (American) bottom bracket crank( held up if the bike fell over it didn't bend( was already married by 1962 to French Huret steel two step chainrings.( Where are the Americans?) The chainwheels (front) were already passed from American to French soon it would be Japanese Shimano who wanted the desireable crank market as well.
Schwinn was huge and well known and possessed the bulk of the American bike market but already the cancer was there and spreading.... It started in the freewheel gears, overtook the transmission shifting. Later on Raleigh England found that the tons of French chain they had in wharehouse was not modern enough to shift the better and newer Japanese derailer units and freewheels.

The Schwinn Varsity became THE bike for 1960's American kids to cycle to school and back. The Model T of ten speed bicycles.
The first apprarence of reliable, more than two gears to shift bike. (The New Departure 3 speed didn't gel and vanished) It carried them to the soda shop and permitted longer journeys to beaches, parks. Four, easy to ride gears matched with that front changer giving you 8 made all the difference! The gearing and those thinner rims/ tires made that big a difference.

The Schwinn Varsity used different ground breaking thinner tires and wheels on British (European) style (3 speed rims" for the first time. It was the first American appearence of reliable derailer gears, with multiple freewheels on the 26 x 1 3/8 steel rim.
It dared to reinvent American cycling as not a toy but as a means of real transport intending to get Americans to cycle more, and use bicycles as transport as the Europeans ( British and French) already had been doing for decades.
The benchmark and popular 26 x 2.125 Balloon tire wheel as pioneered (and never before done) forcefully introduced into the entire bicycle market by founder Ignatz Schwinn who literally got up in the face of many bicycle supplier company leaders with German made Balloon bicycle tires and German bicycle rims in his hand, brought back by Schwinn from a trip to Germany.

"Make the Damn tires or I'll import them!" he said. He forced the miracle. He forced a change in frame design to take the wider rims and tires . He forced the companies to make a whole new tire not "plain thin garden hose" but wider balloon tires that offered American cyclists "The Cadillac ride" of comfort on their bicycles for the first time.
Ignatz Schwinn Saved The American Bicycle Industry with the creation of the 26 x 2.125 rim and balloon bicycle tires. It was a bloody, painful birth.
Now this wide balloon rim/ tire style was passed away and would sleep for two decades until being re-born in the 1980s

The thin 26 x 1 3/8 European rim and tires carried the first 8 and then 10 speed gears. The bike's gears, on thinner rims enabled longer distances to be covered. Cycling was re- invented again . Soon, the thin 26 x 1 3/8 rims / tires with 5 speed in back two in front ( actually a 10 speed) derailer gears vanished.
The Schwinn Varsity wore larger 27 x 1 1/4 th rims. Still thin and soon higher pressure rims and tires. Soon alloy, not steel. Now a new rim and tire.

The 26 x 1 3/8 Steel Schwinn Chicago made rim, a copy of the originally British sized rim was re- assigned to use with the British Sturmey- Archer 3 speed hub. In the Schwinn's other bicycle. The Schwinn Collegiate 3 speed . Schwinn's attempt to copy the British version of Cycling and control it here in the United States. Soon Schwinn and Raleigh were the only two types of bicycle shops. Either a Schwinn or a Raleigh shop. But Raleigh had planted their Sturmey Archer 3 speed "tree" all over America in Sears and even in Schwinn itself.

Starting with the American teen generation. The old school "League of American Wheelman" had faded away. The lure of the new motor car to tinker with, proved too great a force.
In America, the car ruled!
The really solid, strongly made (common, mass made) 10 speed exposed to the American public to a whole new way to cycle. The kids loved the Varsity and so Did Schwinn who churned them out with changes along the way. Schwinn had nice colors. The bike held up to abuse and neglect and rolls along still, without ever being re-greased!
The French hit the Casino Jackpot with the Huret Alvit And the Japanese noticed and studied and planned and worked hard and finally they hit the jackpot at the same casino years later. Feeling threatened, seeing Shimano's might summoned deep feelings and American SRAM was formed to eventually, ride in towards battle with Shimano.

The infinitely variable, long lost and forbidden bicycle gears of interest to the automotive world would be stuff like: The "Armstrong Triplex 3 speed bicycle gear" killed off by Sir Frank Bowden of Raleigh who owned and controlled Sturmey Archer.
Bowden found Armstrong's mysterious British Mecanno witchcraft wonders way too threatening to tolerate.
Also, early B.S.A. bicycle 3 speed gears and early Hercules Cycle and Motor 3 speed gears that were way advanced and dangerous. They were bought up and killed off taken over and another design put in their place wearing their name. Period agreements specifically stated they would FOREVER CEASE their designs. it was that advanced as to be dangerous. Other bicycle gear history and the handful of ultra , ultra rare bicycle gears are in the Vaults of Companies like Volvo who are studying infinitely variable transmission gears potential in the automotive world of today.

I wish I had not misplaced my 1910 German bicycle wholesale catalog showing the early Bugatti bicycles and those rare and never seen German bicycle hubs and schmatic drawings and parts list of Antique German bicycle multi speed gears for bicycles. It was decades ahead of their time. All the best advances in the cycling world were first done by the Germans. Quick release hubs,, cotterless bicycle pedal cranks, before the British and the French. Before them. Germany Ruled.
Incredible finish and innovative quality. Long lost, truly forgotten magic. Study that material if you can ever find it. I out bid the Bugatti Trust and pissed them off.
Ignatz Schwinn knew all this and he kept it quiet. He knew it. He knew the full scope and breadth of the full German scene was far, far, too revolutionary to ever get American companies to accept the real magic and wonder here.

Forcing the birth of the American balloon tire and rim from facts already in use in Germany was the most even he could do and it was murder.
The first world war took hold and those cycle companies in Germany had to stop all the magic of advanced bicycle design and focus on war material work and the lead the Germans had in bicycles passed to the Italians, French, the British, The Japanese and now, China.
Funny how we think who invented something and how things come about when in reality it's all different. I have chapters of bicycle history the real stories of things that cannot be commonly told because of the waves it would cause, the people still alive who would object, secrets left best untold, and kept quiet and important feathers best left un ruffled. material told by people who were there. When a bankruptcy lawyer writes a book you know a lot is left out.

The Future of automotive transmissions, spreading to the entire car is found today, in the electric Tesla Motors automobile. It is being forced onto the scene, by today's version of a Ignatz Schwinn. The forceful person behind the Tesla car. The car transmission of tomorrow is embodied in that electric motor and rapid acceleration it provides.

That Tesla electric car transmission motor is being dropped down on the table before you now, today like those German balloon tires and wider bicycle rims were dropped down then, on the tables of those board room executives and you, like the directors of manufacturing companies then are confronted with the future.

The Tesla car, has endured to a point where it will not be killed off as all the others. It's too strong now. The Sir Frank Bowden's of Today won't be able to buy it out and bury it. Tesla Motor Co. is not Armstrong gears, Hercules prototype 3 speed gears, the long lost forbidden magic of Birmingham Small Arms.

I believe that gas and oil motors, old style forms of transmissions and gas motors and current style of transmissions no matter how advanced. Cars that use Antifreeze coolant and the current order will finally begin to fade like the horse and buggy that was the common entrenched order of that day.

I'm watching the Tesla roadster do everything right. There is so much more I have to offer but not here. not now. regards humberchristopher29@hotmail.com

The Thing is ,

The third pedal and manual shifting of gears is already dead from a business point of view. The newer electronic "click box" shifts gears better than any human could ever do. It reduces warrenty claims and eliminates gear damage done by the inexperienced and new customer learning how do drive a stick shift.

The young Henry Ford's of today are working in a garage on a the future car of tomorrow. It won't add to to current scene . It will up and replace it all together. Somebody will tinker and trial and error and a model will jump up off the workbench and the antigravity car will be born.

Late at night when the neighbors were asleep, when there were no people to see it. No horses to spook, Henry Ford was out testing the first Ford car.

It may be because somebody had blinding headaches and had complete plans forming in their mind like Tesla did. Perhaps somebody discovered the mouldering work books and diaries and paper files of somebody gifted from long ago. And because fate allowed then to look thru things and not just heave it in the dumpster unseen. It may come to light again and because of advances in materials and a second chance. A miracle concieved over a hundred years may live again and bloom. And then again, there will be somebody who will want to kill and bury it.

Things new are not really new they are old miracles that were drowned in the river , on purpose but have come back up to the surface despite the best efforts of powerful people long since dead.
Don't sell service, sell something that does not need it.

The Schwinn Varsity steel tubing used in the construction of the bicycle frame was nothing special. The frame was basic, more lightweight no horn hidden in a gas tank looking enclosure. It offered a combination of more easy to ride gears, and thin easy rolling tires.
When the company leaders are putting off plant investment and upgrades, putting research and developement money into other places. When they out golfing, drinking and fine dining more than studying in school and looking for a competitor's defective freewheels to re-invent, look out.

It's strange. The study of New Departure and Wald reveals a lot of forgotten, interesting things. They offered a lot, they were major players, a lot of items. Vanished empires, flickering shadows of giants from America now gone. The Huret Alvit early ones had steel all metal pulley wheels on the 1962 Schwinn Varsity.
Customers hate cheap plastic. Delrin plastic parts came to bite bicycle componet makers hard, it drew blood.