(a) CVT technology has a real problem with torque - did then, still has now.
(b) market entry with small/basic cars never works - there is no such thing as 'trickle up', only trickle down.

CVT used to make some commercial/practical sense ... before autos got better ... ergo GM pulling the plug on CVT production. Modern automatics are very good indeed. Back in the 60s, comparing the seamless shift of a DAF 55 with the shift surges of, say, a HydraMatic, the outlook looked good. After the DAF, CVT all but disappeared until the last decade or so.

A good site to see just how many ideas are out there is:
http://www.toomonline.com/gearboxlinks.htm

 

ZS, I here you speak of the problems of the CVT being able to handle tq. However nissan has produced over 1 million CVT's in their heavy duty truck division in Japan. Those trucks seem to do alright with tq.

Some manufacturers can seem to get it others can't. Although i haven't searched high and low for info i have yet to hear of anyone really trying to find the limits of CVT's. More and more cars from the far east will be putting these in more cars in their line ups. Seeing how the CVT being produced nowdays is geared towards light production vehicles and not performance vehicles, i don't think you guys are really in any competition with that technology.

I wish you guys the best of luck. But remember the American market is far different than the European market. You guys over there are brought up with F1 in your blood and are used to paying outrageous amounts of money to mod a vehicle. While over hear people are less impressed with that type of mentality and you may find it much harder to pass of a tranny for 13-14k to the average racer. And you can forget about manufactures at that price point. If that is not your target and you want to sell fewer trannies for the higher price then you still may offset the cost to profit ratio if you can find enough sponsored race teams that have the money to buy a couple at a time. However, I don't see any difficulties with staying in the higher teired market cause they wouldn't think twice about paying that. You just have to make more money from less product. In that sense you may find that you are limiting yourself to depend to heavily on a smaller market. You know when that happens you become much more suseptable to market swings and changes.

Anywhoo, good luck with your project. If and when you decide to move stateside hit me up i would be interested in a possible distributership/partnership.

 

I agree, this market would be plenty harder. Sure there are PLENTY of rich people with cars here, but its all about how you market it.

One of the best things you could do is get a partnership with a company that is a widely known racing division...say, something along the lines of WRC, where you constantly have to shift, and proper performance and reliability is 100% crucial. Or maybe, if you are lucky enough, you can get into NASCAR and try your product there with Ford or something (nothing against Ford, they just ahve the strongest ties to Europe IMO).

Find a mass market where people will notice your transmission and the results of your hard work and research. Heavy advertisement will definetly be a key in this. One idea may be to show off a vehicle with the modifyied T5/T56 at a WRX convention or meet, where your next croud would be. But thats just my opinion, I know how annoying it can be for people to give outside help on something they know nothing about that goes against your wishes.

Again, good luck. I've had an idea of creating an online shop myself, although I highly doubt I'll ever get to it, I'll keep you in mind as a parent company for me to be a distributer.

 

I guess your definition of 'high' with respect to torque is relevant ... I know the Murano has a CVT option as does Audi's A6. These are not big-torque motors though. Anything close to heavy-truck with 'CVT' in it may well be an Aisin IVT - the Japanese have a few CVTs/IVTs on the market.

Thanks for you good wishes. Please drop us a line via the web site if you'd like to be an agent over there.

I completely hear what you're saying about the North American market compared with Europe. Price will, for sure, limit volumes but the sense of price is a little off the mark. For a start the target prices are inc UK sales tax (17.5%) and they include installation. Then you've got the weak dollar to consider at the moment.

Take the dollar/sterling ratio back to a more normal 1.4 and extract sales tax/install and a T5 is about US$4900 (T56, c.US$7300) - which includes the ZCU controller and transducers on the clutch, ignition and throttle. There's no point comparing the price against a 'spare part' - the closest boxes to these might be Holingers, Quaife gear kits etc. Go look at their prices...

The real key to this though is that ZeroShift can move the focus from being quicker in gear (i.e. more horsepower) to reclaiming all the time between gears. Therefore, instead of buying a bunch of BHP and a tough gearbox, compare the price of doing so with fitting just a ZeroShift gearbox and compare the expected quarter-mile/lap time gains.

All this will make a lot more sense when the magazine reviews hit the streets and put some video on the web site. Also - as you kindly pointed out before - US sales are up to a year behind UK sales. There will be plenty of time to reflect on whether or not you believe ZeroShift is value for money or not.

 

Well that's VERY encouraging to here the roll out price target in US dollars. I would think there would be no problems getting these into many cars if the products turn out to live up to the claims. Being that the US market is a bit less forgiving than the European market(many reasons for that) at least us American's have a chance to see the products in action for a year before getting out hands on them. That will cut down on a lot of cry baby attitudes and the immature bickering as you undoubtedly have run into on this board.

You got something in the works for my Yugo, or maybe the 1st gen metro's? Don't let the name fool ya. I have traction problem all the wat through 3rd gear.....
























































on ice that is.

 

I was hoping 3S-GTE or 4G63 swap

Yet another factor is our sales tax though...in my part of Florida it is 7%, in some parts its 6%, around the U.S. it can go up as much to 8%, however I dont think any state (except New York, which gets 11% I believe) goes much higher than that, plus, as you mention, dollar/pound ratio.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isnt a shilling worth 5 pence? That would compare to our "nickel" then.

 

The 'price perception' is quite interesting.

I'm from the 'just tell me the bottom line' school of thought rather than the 'headline trick' school of thought. I hate responding to offers of 'price x' only to find tax ... labor ... are missing and the goods won't work unless I upgrade my something or other with another something or other ... and 'price x' suddenly becomes 'price y'. Hence, target prices are TOTAL prices.

At US$7,300 a 6-speed ZeroShift box sounds a whole lot better than UK£7,500 converting at 1.80 $/£ to US$13,500. But that nice US$7,300 has labor missing and then min 6% sales tax on the total. Frankly, I guess the total installed priced with a normalised sterling/dollar ratio and/or Stateside manufacture will end up around US$10,000 for the T56 by the time it reaches you. The T5 about 30% less. The Scooby 6-speed kit somewhere in between.

By the way, don't go thinking I'm alone here... I know it's pretty irregular for the the CEO of an auto company to talk to Internet Forums but I am a petrolhead/racer and you guys are potential customers - it just feels like shooting the breeze over a beer (at the moment!) or a coffee.

With regard to future reliability, I cannot understate the calibre of the ZeroShift engineering team. After getting the invention working, we attracted some of the world's most accomplished transmission engineers. One of our guys was responsible for making a WRC box that even Colin McRae couldn't break. All of our design engineering team have been responsible, in varying degrees, for championship-winning or class-leading transmissions. Few other companies in the world match this team's depth and breadth of knowledge.

Anyway, back to your Yugo. Tub it and load a crate motor then you can hook up one of our T56's... You've got maybe a year to prepare... Get to it! D

 

I see your point, buuuuuuuuut around the states anyways the labor rates vary greatly. They can go from 25 bucks an hour to 200 bucks an hour and maybe higher. Shops don't bid job prices they have a set labor rate and then give you a guess on the amount of hours the job may take based on labor times publiched in the books they go by. However, i'm sure you were already aware of this.
The reason i like to know all aspects is to know whether the ship is being honest with me. Example: I can buy a starter for 50 bucks and then choose the shop that i want to install it based on their reputation and labor rates. On the other hand i could call all the shops i wanted to get a bottom line figure. What they end up doing is charging someone 100 dollars for a starter they can pick up for 35. On top of that they will charge you labor and whatever else they can get away with. I think people are very leary about a bottom dollar figure here.
These first types of trannies you will be releasing are a good choice for commonality and ease of access. They are plentyful here in the states and many customers could easily put these in themselves, thus saving them almost 1/3 to 1/2 the cost to the botom line. Also, if we buy a product out of state we don't have to pay taxes which will again save even more money.

Senario.....I get the tranny for 7,300, and have no more than 100 dollars in materials for the install. Now give me a free saturday or sunday and i have a new Zero shit tranny. The DIY(do it yourself'er) just saveed 30% on the cost of a new tranny. Now that 3k can go toward his/her kids college fund.


BTW, who told you about my Yugo set up? <--That's a joke as i wouldn't be caught dead in one.