Innovative Transmission Promises Improved Range, Performance for Small EVs
By Bill Visnic January 20, 2011By Danny King
San Diego's Fallbrook Technologies Inc. and Team Industries, a developer of drivetrains for small recreational and off-road vehicles, said this week they will work together to design an electric vehicle transmission that the companies claim will perform better and longer than the continuously variable transmissions (CVTs) commonly used in smaller electric vehicles such as golf carts and low-speed neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs).
The two companies will supply the innovative transmission to Georgia-based electric-vehicle maker Tomberlin.
Fallbrook and Team will work at Team's Minnesota facilities to develop a prototype of a transmission for Tomberlin's Anvil neighborhood electric vehicle (NEV). The transmission prototype will be based on Fallbrook's NuVinci continuously variable planetary transmission (CVP), which uses a set of tilting and rotating balls to effect a continuously variable transmission ratio.
Fallbrook, which says such a design reduces the number of parts in the transmission and allows energy to flow more efficiently, actually developed its first version of the NuVinci transmission for bicycles in 2007.
Fallbrook's principle is similar to what some transmission specialists and automakers have shown in the past and generally referred to as "toroidal" continuously variable transmissions, in that the concept of the toroid creates a variable surface area that can be combined with other tilting or shifting surfaces to generate infinite "ratios" between input and output shafts connected to these pieces. The design makes it unlike today's contemporary belt-type CVT transmissions that use a belt riding between two sets of pulleys to transmit drive torque.
Fallbrook Technologies CEO William Klehm says its transmission has about half the
number of parts as a typical CVT, and that it will ultimately be able to produce
its EV powertrain for about half the price. He also expected for Fallbrook and
Team to be able to keep up with the expected boost in EV demand.
"The present UTV/NEV/LSV market is at least more than 600,000 units a year, with
electrification of the market taking place at a far faster pace than that of the
general automotive mark" Senior Marketing Director Tony Passanante told AutoObserver.com. "Team and Fallbrook are prepared to
scale production as necessary to meet the needs of the marketplace."
Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., Mazda Motor Corp. and others showed toroidal CVTs in the past, but various drawbacks - including problematic performance in extreme cold conditions - mitigated against widespread adoption for production models, although Nissan did fit a version of its "Extroid" CVT to a limited run of production cars
The deal illustrates how expected growth in battery-electric vehicles - even of the low-speed and NEV variety in which Tomberlin specializes - is spurring new investments and partnerships. Fallbrook said last month that it raised about $39 million in equity financing, giving the San Diego-based company a total of about $95 million in financing since 2000. Investors in the most recent financing round included an affiliate of Australian financing giant Macquarie Group.
"We are equally committed to improve both the performance and battery life of electric vehicles," said Rob Smithson, Fallbrook's chief technology officer, adding that the NuVinci "allows an electric car motor to operate in a more efficient manner by continuously optimizing the electric powertrain for driving conditions."
The street-legal Tomberlin Anvil, which seats four, has a 50-horsepower electric motor, a top speed of 25 miles per hour and a single-charge battery range of about 40 miles. The vehicle is 103 inches long, or about two feet shorter than Chrysler's GEM e4 NEV, one of the segment's most-recognized players.
The Anvil's base price is $15,995, compared to the $10,495 price of the GEM e4.
"We're continually searching for leading suppliers capable of providing technologies to make our eco-friendly automobiles more compelling and exciting than anything else like it on the market," said Michael Tomberlin, CEO of Tomberlin, in the statement. "That means offering improved hill climbing, acceleration and towing capacity as well as other rider benefits in our vehicles."
Danny King is a frequent contributor to Edmunds.com's Green Car Advisor
Photo of primary mechanism of NuVinci CVT by Fallbrook Technologies
LEAVE A COMMENT