Because you also asked… and asked

Okay, you’ve seen how to shift gears on an old-skool Vespa. Some of you wonder how a modern twist ‘n’ go scooter shifts gears. Well, it doesn’t. It has a continuously-variable transmission. Here’s how a CVT works:



The pulleys, called variators, change size steplessly, allowing them to find the “gear” ratio best suited to speed, engine power, load, etc. An amazingly elegant device. Yes, this video shows a CVT in a Polaris snowmobile, but the principle is the same, whether the vehicle is a scooter, or a Nissan Maxima…

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 10:42 am and is filed under Scooter tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Because you also asked… and asked”

  1. John McClane Says:
    November 19, 2008 at 12:04 pm

    Or a DAF. I think they invented it.

  2. Orin Says:
    November 19, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    Here’s a capsule history:

    A CVT, called Variomatic, was designed and built by Huub van Doorne, co-founder of Van Doorne’s Automobiel Fabriek (DAF), in the late 1950s, specifically to produce an automatic transmission for a small, affordable car. The first DAF car using van Doorne’s CVT, the DAF 600,was produced in 1958. Van Doorne’s patents were later transferred to a company called VDT (Van Doorne Transmissie B.V.) when the passenger car division was sold to Volvo; its CVT was used in the Volvo 340.

    I believe the sale to Volvo happened in the late ’70s or early ’80s. The only vehicles carrying the DAF name today are heavy trucks; the company is owned by PACCAR, which, oddly enough, is based in Seattle. At present, Nissan offers CVTs in its Altima, Maxima, Versa (aka Tiida) and Murano models.

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