It’s 2014, and we are in the age of electric cars. Cars like Tesla, BMW i8 and lot of others are living proofs of these energy efficient and environment friendly cars. But then, these cars have not gone the distance like the rugged old cars that run on gas. So now, Volkswagen, has come up with a solution, in which its new car shifts gear 10 times to save gas. Let;s take a look at what’s happening.
It’s a fact that the RPM of the engine has direct effects on the car’s fuel efficiency and gas consumption. That’s, just like any other machine that runs on gas. So, to meet the need to save fuel, there has to be something that we could do, to save gas, but still help people rush to their long-office drives.
Today, Volkswagen, the company that owns Audi, Bently, Bugatti, Lamborghini and Porsche brands has come up with a 10 speed dual-clutch transmission that improves fuel efficiency by 20 percent. The company has promised that this new gearbox will be deployed in all of the car brands they own.
The new gearbox will be able to push a 369 pound-feet of torque with ease, and that’s literally more than enough to improve the performance of a car. While this might just look like a simple change in the gearbox by adding a few gears to the system, it’s far more complicated than we think. Designing a 10 speed gearbox will require a complete design change in the way the gears are shifting, with about 100 different possibilities of shifts.
The closest that any company has gotten to resolve this issue of saving gas by increasing the gears was Chrysler. The company came up with a 9-speed automatic gearbox, which looked promising back in 2011. During those days, when Chrysler was making news for pushing a 9-speed gearbox-ed machine to the market, they said that we are in the limits of what can be done with these increasing gears. But now VW has proven them wrong with this new gearbox system. Talking about the new gearbox, at the International Motor Symposium in Austria, Dr. Martin Winterkorn said that these cars will be available to the market by 2020. We still have a long way to go!
Changing gears and pushing these badass machines to their limits is literally my hobby. And I still remember that amazing feeling that I got when shifting from 4th to 5th gear in my car, and listening to the sounds and the G-s these creatures create with all my senses. Then, it was 5th to 6th last year. But now, if these 10-speed machines are a reality with manual transmission, I’d love it.