The CVT answer to the 8-speed dual-clutch gearbox?

@yoatmon
I would add "more efficient" on top of the list. Contemporary CVTs have not been very efficient. Thus, European car manufacturers (with a few exceptions) have more or less lost interest in CVTs. The first generation DCGs were not so efficient either but the second generation is much better. For diesel applications, gearbox and car manufacturers are already working on 9-speed versions of the DCG.

Surprise, surprise: Most of the parasitic loss is in the belt/wheel contact.

Protean has a 50 kW in wheel design that could be put in board as well. Two of these would eliminate the transmission and differential nicely.

http://aboutalternativecars.com/2011/10/protean-electric%E2%80%99s-hybrid-in-wheel-retrofit-system/

@HarveyD
If you strive for efficiency, an e-motor is not the way to go. You Americans have to learn to save energy!

Wow, I'm getting old and curmudgety:

You can have my manual transmission when you pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.

:-)

HarveyD
If e-motors have a peak efficiently of 95% a mechanical gearbox at 98% is more efficient. As long as you make electricity from coal, natural gas and nuclear energy, EVs do not make any sense. As MIT showed in a report a couple of years ago, not even future US electricity production could make an EV as efficient in a WTW perspective as a parallel electric hybrid. (I have provided the link to this reference a couple of times before, so it is not included here.). Thus, regarding efficiently and CO2 emissions, there are no arguments for EVs. Luckily, they are so expensive that no one wants to buy them.

BTW: So far this year in Sweden, only 5 private car owners have bought an EV, this in spite of all the incentives.

I think Sustainable Mobility has to do with the human race on this planet and not one locale that might do better than others.

The one element that we all have in common is the sun. Once we harness that wireless fusion generator we can get more towards a sustainable future.

@MG
I was referring to the USA (and the US electricity mix). I stated that very clearly.

Yes, I have been to Canada both winter and summer. It is a nice country. When you cross the border from the USA (coming Detroit, for example) to Canada, everything is cleaner, e.g. less garbage thrown at the roadside. I once made a trip by car from Winnipeg to Vancouver Island and back, so I have seen quite a lot of Canada. And yes, electric cars make more sense in a country where electricity production is “cleaner”. However, we should also note that USA and Canada are linked together when it comes to electricity production and incremental electricity production presumably has quite a large carbon footprint in Canada as well as in the USA. Anyway, if you can produce electricity with low CO2 in Canada, the best you could do would be to send this electricity to the USA so that they can shut down some old power plants. This could be done instantly and give much better result than introducing a few EVs on the market.

Peter...we sold over $1.1B of clean electricity to North Eastern States last year. We could sell much more but Coal/NG/Nuclear power plants lobbies (South of the Border) convinced many politicians and many citizens that Hydro Electricity is not green enough and that we should only ship (South) electricity from Wind turbines. That's why we have installed some 2000 wind turbines and will install 2000+ more in the next 3 to 5 years to double our exports to USA.

Meanwhile, we are building many more large and small Hydro plants (to increase installation from 45,000 megawatt to 90,000 megawatt for the local market, future electrified vehicles and for export to neighboring Provinces and USA. Wind turbines could also be multiplied, specially on East, North and West Coast lines where very good quality winds exist. The very high voltage transmission lines (735,000 Volts) cloud be upgraded to transport more energy from new Hydro plants and adjacent wind turbines. We could easily supply most of the clean e-energy required for 50,000,000+ EVs South of the Border at a very low price.

Peter, I recall reading the entire MIT report.  It deals only with carbon emissions, not energy security.  Plus, you ignore that nuclear has neither direct carbon emissions nor land-use changes with carbon impacts.

Nuclear power? So you do not care if you get a new catastrophe?

Seriously, it's nowhere near the issue you believe it to be.  Look at the data, ignore the hype.

The days of "monkeywrenching" utility nuclear projects are over and done. And with it the decades long costly construction delays while demagogic lawyers wrangle and employ every strategem to delay in court.

The Energy Acts of 2005 and 2007 produced lots of mischief, in order to obtain reform of those laws. Despite every delay imagineable imposed by the anti-energy Obamacites, while pretending otherwise, even they ran out of excuses, to delay eventually.

The AP-1000 Westinghouse-Toshiba "Standard Design" Gen III+, walk-away, Passive PWR reactor was finally licensed last December. Combined Construction and Operating Licenses have now been assigned to Georgia Power in February and to Scana in March 2012 for contruction of four reactors at Vogtle and Summer Power Stations. Work is already proceeding. The GE-Hitachi even safer fully passive, ESBWR "Standard Design" is only a few month from similar approval.

The new "anti-monkeywrenching" laws have been tested by several obstuction intended anti-nuclear groups already. In every case, the cases were summarily thrown out of court. A wonderful omen, it is indeed.

It portends that the capital costs for an AP-1000 1114MW plant will decline from $ 4.9 billion, to nearer $3.5 billion, and not rise erratically from there, due to monkeywrenching. One 1970s plant reportedly had costs rise to $11 billion, before the near bankrupt Utility gave up, and mothballed/cancelled the almost completed project. Instead we got 30 years of coal fired pollution from even then obsolescent, and pollution spouting old smokers, 'grandfathered in' by the incredibly bumbling Carterites.

Note that a single pair of thse new nuclear plants coming on-line in 2016-2017, will outproduce everyone of the thousands of windmills and solar power stations now in existence in America, combined.

That is if any of today's windmills, will be still turning in 2017, as the windmill active life seems to be only as long as it takes the erector to get paid; and the owners to grift away any remaing funds and tax credits, before declaring bankruptcy.

Meanwhile these nuclear fission plants will run 93% of the time for the next 60 years plus, well into the Fusion era, producing reliable electricity for millions.

To set the records straight, USA produced 4 Trillion KWh in 2011.

1. Coal = 42% or 1.68 TKwh
2. NG = 25% or 1.0 TKwh
3. Nuke = 19% or 0.76 TKwh
4. Hydro = 8% or 0.32 TKwh
5. Wind = 3% or 0.12 TKwh
6. Bio-M = 1% or 0.04 TKwh
7. Geo-T = 1% or 0.04 TKwh
8. Solar = 1% or 0.04 TKwh

Since Hydro + NG = 33% or 1.32 TKwh, Wind & Solar could, in principle, produce as much (1.32 TKwh instead of 0.16 TKwh) when/if Hydro & NG power plants are used as back-up for the two intermittent sources.