What Are The Pros And Cons Of A CVT Transmission?

Leonardo da Vinci has a long list of masterpieces to his credit, including the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, Vitruvian Man, and the continuously variable transmission? Yep, Leonardo is credited with developing the concept for CVTs back in the 15th century, although it didn't start becoming popular in cars until a bit later. The DAF 600, a tiny car from a small Dutch automaker, is generally considered the first car sold with a CVT. However, the modern era for these transmissions kicked off at the end of the 1980s with cars like the Subaru Justy and Ford Fiesta.

Completely different from standard gearboxes, traditional CVTs operate by doing away with traditional gears entirely, replacing them with a pulley-and-belt setup. One pulley is driven by the engine, and it transfers that power to the wheels via a belt (or chain) leading to the second pulley. The system adjusts the belt's position in a way that, in essence, changes the effective diameter of the first pulley to change the ratio between it and the second. (You can get a better idea of how CVTs work by breaking out the Lego blocks.) So, while the belt can adjust a car's drive ratio along the full spectrum of the first pulley's diameter, a conventional transmission uses a limited set of physical gears, with unchangeable ratios. As you might guess, it's a difference that has plenty of pros and cons for drivers.

CVTs seem like they're everywhere today, even in some cars you probably didn't know came with them. A primary factor for this trend is efficiency, which is a key advantage of a CVT. You can think of it this way: In a car with an eight-speed automatic transmission, you only have eight drive ratios available. But in some situations, the car would run more efficiently if it could use a drive ratio that falls in between the ones offered with the unchangeable physical gears. A CVT lets that happen by effectively providing an infinite number of drive ratios by adjusting the pulleys.

Other advantages for the CVT are that it can be smaller and lighter than transmissions with a large number of gears, and that it provides smoother acceleration. You won't feel any lurching or clunking as metal gears are moved about because CVTs don't have any gears. Eliminating the gears and associated components can also make CVTs less complex than regular transmissions, with fewer parts to break and fix.

CVTs have a particularly bad reputation among people who actually like driving, and there are sound reasons why you don't want one. Starting with the sound they make. When a car with an automatic transmission accelerates, the engine speed changes when you change the gears, and that's the tune gearheads have gotten accustomed to. With a gearless CVT, the engine will move to a higher speed and stay there as the belt between pulleys does its work. The result is a high-pitched droning noise that can be extremely irritating to some folks. In addition, regular automatics can usually handle more torque than CVTs since the gears transfer power through their robust metal teeth, while CVTs rely on friction between the pulley and belt. It's another strike against CVTs if you're interested in something fun to drive.

Automakers have tried to address these concerns, however. Toyota promises a "distinct performance feel" in the CVT of the 2025 Corolla, thanks to the fact it has a physical first gear to get off the line before the CVT comes into play. The Corolla, and other CVT-equipped rides, also comes with paddle shifters that can tell a car's computer to skip the usual smooth transitions in belt movement and sort of "jump" from one to another. The idea is that the jumps are supposed to feel like the switching of traditional gears. Whether that will shift people's perception of CVTs remains to be seen.