Jeff15,
From my understanding I believe you have described a conventional CVT rather than the ECVT.
- My understanding from literature and also a video of the transmission being assembled / disassembled at an American Mechanical University is a s follows:
- CVT part of ECVT is a misnomer in the case of the Jazz as the “ constant variability” is governed out side of the transmission in terms of whether you are in EV, Hybrid or Engine drive modes
- The transmission itself has a single fixed ratio gear and a clutch which is engaged when Engine drive mode is required, this is actioned by computer control dependent primarily on load and road speed.
- There are no belts or pulleys in the ECVT to provide variability of final drive ratios like there are in a Toyota Yaris Hybrid for instance.
- The “changing gear” noise when in engine mode I believe is synthetic and will continue to happen as long as you keep your foot down and bears no relationship to a change of ratio.
- The advantage of this system is that the actual transmission has far fewer moving parts etc.
I will be quite happy / grateful to be corrected on any inaccuracies due to my limited knowledge / ignorance.
Having had a (too short) test drive I felt it was probably the worst part of the car in terms of noise v actual acceleration when pressing on but I guess the aim is to adapt driving style to minimise the noise etc.
