Fallbrook Technologies Inc. (makers of the NuVinci)

Article that details their corporate history and plans for the future:

Fallbrook is geared up to go global with its revolutionary vehicle transmission
http://www.statesman.com/business/f...lobal-with-1430166.html?viewAsSinglePage=true

It raised more than $39 million in a private stock offering last year and has signed up key allies in the automotive and electric vehicle industries.

One of those new business allies is Team Industries, a Minnesota-based company that sells about $200 million a year in drive systems for snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles and other sport and work vehicles. Team signed an agreement with Fallbrook to co-develop a drive system for an electric vehicle prototype.

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Fallbrook spent years making its technology work well for bikes before it introduced its second-generation NuVinci that weights 5.5 pounds. The transmission is popular in Europe, where more people commute to work on bikes. The company sold 3,500 bike transmissions in its latest month.

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tks
1oCk

i dont see the point of cvt for bicycles,
i would want indexed shifters for the nuvinci..

5.5lb .. similar to the nexus 7/8 speed.. ?
less resistence ?

surprised they are selling that many for bicycles...

You need to try one. Indexed shifting is one of the issues the NuVinci solves! You can ALWAYS find the perfect "gear" to keep your cadence steady. It saves more energy than it wastes by being able to keep the motor/body in it's most efficient range ALL of the time. So, if your pedaling efficiency with varying cadence and missed or less than optimum shifts/gear ratios was %50, the smoothness of the NuVinci greatly improves on that, more than balancing out it's 12% ish efficiency loss compared to derailleurs. Those numbers are total guesses and just for example BTW, probably close, but just guesses. Once they figure out that it needs to be in a mid drive application with a tiny bit of electric assist to work best and someone starts making some appropriate frames, they'll really take off. :wink:

What mdd said.
If you had a fixed gear bike with no derailleur, and a wide CVT spread, you could make up for the 12% CVT loss. Derailleur and tensioners do eat some power, for sure. Guys who ride fixed gear bikes know this !

A motor can also be ran at it's peak efficiency 100% of the time. That is a BIG deal on stock power level eBikes, where you are quickly dropping out of the motor's efficiency band when you hit hills or start from a stop!

The gain is even better for electric cars, which will run outside of their maximum efficiency band more than half the time. Look at any efficiency curve on an electric motor; very peaky, and very lossy at low speeds. For an electric car you can:

1. Eke more power out of a smaller motor, thus use less energy to do the same job.
2. Have a higher top speed on said motor.
3. Stay within the efficiency band all the time ( unless the driver demands more power or torque, then you can reduce or increase the RPM accordingly )

I am kind of sad to see that they are in such a financial hole. I really do think CVT will do what gearboxes can't for electric cars; deal with all sorts of abuse and provide excellent efficiency.

My nuvinicy is abuse tolerant and smooth, but it is far from efficient..

Tesla had all kinds of problems trying to develop a two speed transmission for their car. I think they finally gave up on the idea.....?

neptronix said:

If you had a fixed gear bike with no derailleur, and a wide CVT spread, you could make up for the 12% CVT loss. Derailleur and tensioners do eat some power, for sure. Guys who ride fixed gear bikes know this !

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IMO, no way!
(fixies' drive train friction advantage is miniscule)

I used to ride a road bike,
there is no way that nuvinci is a suitable replacement for roadies. (just like hub gear)

its aimed at the commuter market, for less maintenance...
(or downhill)


the nuvinci gear shifter probable have index marking on it.
but having click index (with close ratios) will be more convenient and than just none... (IMHO of someone who never tried it)
there is only so much fine tune twiddling of your gearing you can possibly do for efficiency...

OK, well i haven't ridden a fixie/single speed before.. it's just what i hear.
I think the CVT is *far* more important for the electric side than the pedal side, due to the wide variation of efficiency of an electric motor.

wouldn't ideally for e-bike cvt be auto adjust like a scooter than manual adjust to get maximum benefit...??

[youtube]9NdI52Ba_50[/youtube]

If they'd only warranty them when:
A) used with electric motors
B) used somewhere OTHER than laced into a standard rear wheel (with very specific chainring ratio front/rear)
then they'd be a lot more useful to ebiking.

(they *might* choose to warranty a problem hub even if used in those manners, but they don't have to, according to their own warranty statement)

I'd love to use one as a middrive-jackshaft kind of thing, with something like their auto-shifting kit.


One other issue is that at high power levels, at least the earlier version could eat as much as 1/3 or more of the power put into it, based on usage by at least one person here on ES (can't remember the thread title).

i dont like the idea of autoshift for pure pedaling...

maybe better for ebikes...
http://electricbikereport.com/nuvinci-automatic-bicycle-shifting/

My buddy used to work for Eaton corp and I visted the shop where they were testing 2 NuVinci units on a bench. They were rigged with powerful DC motors turning them, and variable resistance mechanism on the output side, along with 100 different sensors everywhere. I remember him beating the crap out of that thing at full load and full motor power and i held up to the abuse just fine...

Apparently they make (made?) more than one version of the 171: a bicycle version, and a developer's kit version, which have different power capabilities.

FWIW, the develper's kit version is now very cheap on their site, and ther eis a thread here on ES dedicated to builds and information around it.