In Defense Of: The CVT Automatic (Yes, I'm Going There)

Doug DeMuro
by Doug DeMuro

Well, folks, it was nice knowing you. Really, it was. I’ll never forget the days I spent reading Nissan LEAF-related anecdotes from gslippy, and Hummer-related anecdotes from Hummer, and of course fully capitalized anecdotes from bigtruckseriesreview @ Youtube. Really, ladies and gentlemen: the pleasure was all mine.

I’m not saying these things because I’m going anywhere. On the contrary, I think you’re going to make me leave after I devote today’s column to defending the single-most hated item in the entire automotive industry: the continuously-variable automatic transmission. (If you hadn’t read the title, you’d be thinking: “Is he going to defend… the Dodge Avenger?”)

Car enthusiasts, as a whole, hate the CVT, a fact I primarily attribute to the noise it makes. You see, the CVT either doesn’t have gears or has an infinite number of gears. No one knows for sure, except a TTAC commenter who will reply with a long, detailed explanation of just how many gears a CVT has before calling me a giant doofus.

Anyway: because of the CVT’s lack of gears, or possibly its infinite gears, it loses the typical upshifting and downshifting noises we’ve all come to appreciate from a normal transmission. This seems to really piss off car people. Seriously, if you’re a car enthusiast, it doesn’t matter what you think of US government policies: your least favorite drone is the one that comes from the CVT.

But I’m here to tell you the CVT isn’t so bad. Really, it’s not. And I will explain precisely why in the next few hundred words, all of which will conveniently ignore any possible opposition. Here goes:

1. Performance. Betcha didn’t think I’d pull that out as number one, eh? But it’s true: the CVT is better than a traditional automatic for performance.

Here’s why. Say you’re cruising along in your four-cylinder Altima, which is equipped with a CVT and hubcaps. And you reach a stoplight next to a four-cylinder Camry, which also has hubcaps, but includes a highly inferior six-speed automatic transmission. In this situation, there’s only one thing to do: continue talking on the phone.

No, what you really do is you race, because that’s the only way to determine value in our society, at least according to those Fast and Furious movies. And if you do race, what you’ll discover is that the Camry has to go through upshift after upshift, constantly starting over from the bottom of the rev range, while the Altima’s CVT simply holds its engine at peak power. The Altima, meanwhile, would whrrrr its way to victory, miles ahead of the Camry (apparently this was a long drag race), and the Camry’s owner would hide in shame and mediocrity.

2. Fuel Economy. As we all know, the CVT offers vast fuel economy benefits over a typical automatic transmission. There are several highly technical reasons for this, and I – as a highly trained automotive journalist who recently attended a press event where I was allowed to drive a Jeep Wrangler on a race track – know absolutely none of them.

Because of my distinct lack of technical acumen, I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves. And the numbers are:

Toyota Prius (CVT): 51 MPG city, 48 MPG highway


Lamborghini Aventador (Not a CVT): 11 MPG city, 17 MPG highway

From this we can gather that the CVT is incredibly beneficial to fuel economy, possibly as much as five times over a regular transmission. Also, the Prius might be faster than the Aventador, based on reason number one.

3. Can still sound like a normal automatic. So you understand that the CVT is better for performance. And you know that it’s better for gas mileage. But you just can’t get over the fact you’d rather listen to “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus, playing on repeat, with backing vocals from that girl who did the “Friday” song, than spend even a moment listening to a CVT automatic.

Fortunately, I have a solution for you: manual shift mode. I’m currently driving a CVT-equipped Subaru Impreza press car, and while it certainly makes the traditional CVT “whrrrrr” noise, you can, at any moment, put it in manual mode, where you will quickly discover its shift paddles are roughly 57 times better than the ones in my Cadillac. Goodbye, annoying CVT sounds!

Unfortunately, this also means “goodbye, awesome fuel economy” and “goodbye, street racing potential.” But if you ever find yourself wishing to maximize those incredibly important items, just slide it back over to “D.” And turn up Miley.

So there you have it, folks: a defense of the continuously-variable automatic transmission. I’ll go into hiding now.

@DougDeMuro is the author of Plays With Cars and the operator of PlaysWithCars.com. He’s owned an E63 AMG wagon, road-tripped across the US in a Lotus without air conditioning, and posted a six-minute lap time on the Circuit de Monaco in a rented Ford Fiesta. One year after becoming Porsche Cars North America’s youngest manager, he quit to become a writer. His parents are very disappointed.

Doug DeMuro
Doug DeMuro

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  • Brandloyalty Brandloyalty on Jul 26, 2013

    No one but epsilonkore has made the important distinction that cars such as the Murano have a very different CVT from cars such as the Prius. The Murano etc. uses a snowmobile cone/belt design, while the Prius etc. have a planetary gear set. The planetary gear set allows power input from two sources -- the gas engine and an electric motor. It also provides a path for spinning another electric motor used as a generator to regenerate braking forces into energy stored in the traction battery. I have a Ford Escape Hybrid. It uses a planetary gear set very much like the Prius'. Ford built these things from '05 to '12. A lot of them had awd drivetrains. I would speculate that a planetary gear set is not sensitive to loading such as climbing grades or pulling trailers. It just sheds whatever load it doesn't like into the form of higher revs. Though there must have been a few, I can't recall of hearing of any failures of the eCVT. In cities such as New York and San Francisco, they put 300,000 miles on Escape Hybrids before retiring them. Carefully note that 300,000 miles in SF just might involve some strain on the transmission. One thing I don't like about the eCVT is that you can't tell how fast you're going, or if you're gaining or losing speed by listening to the engine note. You have to understand how it works to know why this is so. When climbing hills, it can actually change revs considerably with no change in speed. This is because the gas engine has to rev faster to maintain speed when the electric boost is used up. It means you have to look at the speedometer two or three times as often as with a regular manual or automatic transmission. Also, this setup has no way to provide power from the gas engine when reversing. So when the Pruis or Escape Hybrid reverse, it is electric-only. Which is dependent on traction battery capacity and an electric motor with less power than the gas engine. But I've never heard of anyone having a problem due to this. SELECTIVE_KNOWLEDGE_MAN is correct that the eCVT is silent. When in electric-only mode, the Prius and Escape Hybrid transmissions are bing used, but are silent. The droning is a result of using a CVT, but comes from the engine.

  • CelticPete CelticPete on Jul 26, 2013

    "No one but epsilonkore has made the important distinction that cars such as the Murano have a very different CVT from cars such as the Prius. The Murano etc. uses a snowmobile cone/belt design, while the Prius etc. have a planetary gear set. The planetary gear set allows power input from two sources — the gas engine and an electric motor. It also provides a path for spinning another electric motor used as a generator to regenerate braking forces into energy stored in the traction battery." +1000. The CVT in a Prius is NOTHING LIKE the CVT in a Nissan - or other CVTs in other cars. Its far closer to a normal Automatic. I'd point out some other things about CVTs. #1) They use torque converters. #2) They are now using a planetary gear to augment the range of the CVT (CVT low and CVT high). So in reality they are getting closer to torque converter autos. On the bad side - they still exhibit "lag" that is the CVT has to slide to the correct 'gear position" and while this happens quick - its not as quick as a torque converter auto. It is lower cost and so represents a good cost effective solution for those who want an automatic.

  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
  • ToolGuy Ford is good at drifting all right... 😉
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