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Comment by globular-toast | Hacker News Reader

How Toyota's eCVT transmission works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppyK3ZlUbtM (Nerd snipe warning: the Weber Auto channel is brilliant and has lessons about all kinds of transmission and engine types).

When it comes to something like F1 I think it's OK for efficiency to not be the top priority. Road vehicles absolutely should be as light and efficient as possible with strict limits on pollution (including noise). But it's OK for society to have a few things like F1 that are just for fun. We just don't want everyone to be driving F1 cars around their neighbourhoods or have an F1 race every week.

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I think the F1 teams would all switch to racing versions of those transmissions the second they would be allowed to do so.

The efficiency gains wouldn't even be important in comparison (until you start bringing significantly less fuel than your opponents), but just the reduction in weight and size (important for aero considerations) would be worth it. Also, the power gains from always running the ICE (and its turbo) at the perfect sweet spot in the power curve would be a giant advantage in racing.

Yeah, but a huge part of F1 is the sound. It's iconic in the true sense of the word. I can totally understand them wanting to protect it as part of the brand. Enthusiasts might be into other types of motor racing, but F1 sounds fast. Everyone understands that.

Well, they could add speakers that make vroom-vroom noises.

> Well, they could add speakers that make vroom-vroom noises.

And you could have typed this comment into notepad and saved it on a file on your desktop, but instead you shared it with a world that considers it irrelevant.

See? We all do useless things.

Correct, it has been done and got shutdown immediately.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_FW15C

Mercedes is running with a CVT again for some years

By rule, all F1 teams have to use a sequential gearbox. It is section 9.7.1 of Technical regulations:

9.7.1 The number of forward gear ratios must be 8. Continuously variable transmission systems are not permitted.

They are not.

I believe F1 cars are actually incredibly efficient.

You can only take so much fuel and fuel is also weight. You can only win if you use the available fuel to propel you forwards efficiently.

Definitely, but the weight of the fuel doesn’t matter that much and they allowed quite a bit of fuel. Cars wouldn’t gain much by being twice as efficient if they were any slower.

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