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AUTOMOBILES TODAY
Gas engine powered vehicles are an immediate application for the commercial use of CVET technology.

The CVET can facilitate the transition from present-day gas engine powered vehicles to electric motor powered vehicles. The CVET should be able to maintain and extend the time of what is likely to be a transition period from gas based to electric based automotive power. The CVET can extend the duration for acceptability of gas engine and hybrid powered vehicles, due to dramatic reduction of gas consumption and the reduction in generation of pollutants.The CVET could be used with a gas-powered engine to increase efficiency by a significant factor in stop/start type driving (e.g. enabling highway driving efficiency under city driving conditions).

The CVET's positive impact on energy usage efficiency will dramatically increase the performance of a gas engine or hybrid (gas engine & electric motor) powered automobile compared to standard, automatic or CVT type transmissions. The CVET makes it possible to maintain existing automobile performance levels while enabling size and cost reduction of the gas engine (both the gas engine and electric motor in hybrid power-trains).

The CVET enables an unprecedented reduction of transmission size and cost.

HYBRID AND FUEL CELL VEHICLES
The CVET is a transmission that enables a motor to always operate at a constant speed and at the motor’s peak efficiency, while providing controlled output speed and torque conversion. The CVET's conversion of constant motor speed to variable output speed is accomplished electronically. Unlike mechanical CVT’s, no external power is required to perform the conversion. Therefore all efficiency benefits are fully captured in energy savings.

The picture below shows the CVET mounted in a vehicle powered by a single electric motor. The source of power for such a vehicle could be a fuel cell, or in today's applications, a hybrid power source (e.g. small gas powered engine powering a generator). Use of the CVET significantly improves efficiency of operation resulting in dramatically lower energy consumption.

The CVET principle of operation enables it to recover regenerative energy during braking and store it in a battery OR for fuel cell applications, in a subsequent process, generate hydrogen to provide additional fuel for fuel cells.

The CVET's advanced architecture can be used for a 4 (or 2) wheel drive electric motor powertrain. Automotive companies are moving towards this type of powertrain in which mechanical linkages are elimnated and replaced by electronic control of speed. The benefits of this approach include full time all-wheel drive and elimination of the differential. The image below shows the implementation of the CVET in a 4 wheel configuration. Each motor is connected to its wheel via a CVET (scaled in size to the power requirement) controlled by a CVET controller.

THE RACE FOR A VIABLE FUEL CELL VEHICLE
The technical problems which have to be overcome to produce an economically viable fuel cell are well documented. At the present, it appears that it will take years to reduce the cost of fuel cells to make them economically viable for high volume automotive use.

The CVET may dramatically accelerate the time to introduction of economically viable fuel cells for automobiles.

The CVET technology makes it possible for automobiles to operate at optimal highway driving efficiency even when used in city driving conditions. This increase in the efficiency of energy usage means that an automobile requires a lower rate of energy consumption during its operation, which could make it possible to for a fuel cell powered vehicle to use a much smaller capacity fuel cell. This should translate into a reduction in fuel cell size and cost and enable volume production of affordable fuel cells for vehicular applications, possibly years before they would otherwise become economically viable.