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Honda Building CVT Plant In Mexico
by
Derek Kreindler
(IC: employee)
Published: May 3rd, 2013
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Honda is making a big bet on CVT transmissions, with a $470 million assembly plant that will crank out as many as 750,000 CVTs and employ 1,500 people.
Automotive News reports that the plant, located in Celaya, will be located alongside a factory that will produce the next-generation Honda Fit. Currently, the 4-cylinder Accord, Insight and Civic Hybrid all use CVTs, and the next generation Fit is expected to get that transmission as well. But more models will have to employ those gearboxes to help meet capacity requirements, and Honda is being tight-lipped on future product plans (as per usual).
Derek Kreindler
More by Derek Kreindler
Published May 3rd, 2013 12:00 PM
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The Honda Fit would probably benefit greatly from the CVT - the low-torque 1.5 is hobbled by gear ratios that favor quick acceleration at low (city) speeds, but lead to a high RPM drone on the highway. The CVT can be tuned to that motor and will result in gains in acceleration, quieter highway cruising, and better fuel economy. Just make sure the Sport gets nifty paddle shifters.
In my college days there was a guy whose family seemed to specialize in buying weird stuff. His Dad had a Daf Daffodil with a Van Doorne Variomatic CVT . I believe it had a 750cc 4 cylinder. You had to replace the belts fairly often but it was a relatively easy cheap task . Just a weird vehicle but it was actually kind of fun to drive especially when in town. His brother in law had a NSU Ro80 with the Auto Manual and we all know how that turned out, whilst he had a Renault Caravelle. Unfortunately he grew out of it, now has a BMW 5 diesel.
“And in general, we experienced a responsiveness and linearity from the driver’s seat that’s lacking in some small-car CVTs. The rubber-band delay isn’t completely excised, and you do feel a little bit of ‘drag’ when moving back and forth from about 1/4 throttle to 3/4 throttle, but for those sorts of situations there are steering-wheel paddle-shifters that tap into seven simulated ‘gears.’ The rubber band delay can't be completely exercised because of the technology itself. The CVT uses pulleys and these pulleys take time to shift. http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/TECHNOLOGY/OVERVIEW/cvt.html The result of course is smooth power changes but its not as repsonsive as a planetary automatic or an automated manual. A regular automatic manages shifts in as little as half a second (modern one) and an automated manual in 2/10 a second. These are of course more EXPENSIVE. The reason why the Japanese are switching to CVT is that they are cheap, smooth and get good gas mileage. But as far as performance goes they are slow and unresponsive to change to throttle position. Paddle shifters will not help because of the way the CVT actually works. And like alot of people of course I have driven one. You can't go to a rental agency and not get a Nissan nowadays. Nissan like Honda uses to make sporty FWD cars. But now they have switched to appliances. IT makes sense for the millenials I suppose. But if you are an enthusiast you will want to steer clear of CVTs because of how they work. Its like FWD. Does it work - sure kinda. Is it an optimal choice for performance. Hell no. Even Nissan knows this. What kind of tranny do they use in their sports car (the GT-R) and AUTOMATED MANUAL. Why? It changes gears faster then a human can.
Honda is very shrewd. They wait for everyone else to flesh out the issues with new technology, and then adapt it with solutions. Direct injection is the best example of this. Google "carbon buildup" in combination with any of these brands: Audi, BMW, Mazda, Hyundai, Volkswagen... you will see tons of threads on forums and really nasty pics of intake valves caked over with tar. They've all fixed the problem now by using hybrid fuel injection systems that use port injectors to wash the valves. They also use motorcycles as their test bed. They've had DSG transmissions available on the big VFR for years.