Scooters are often looked at as a more convenient way to commute from one place to another, especially during peak hour traffic. With more comfortable seating and ease of riding, scooters are contributing significant numbers in the total two-wheeler sale figures. While we do not have to operate any sort of clutch or a gearbox while riding a scooter, there were a number of queries regarding the fact that do scooters have gears? Well, if you are one of them, read to know about all the details about the powertrain of an automatic scooter.
What Type of Gearbox Drives A Scooter?
Before starting with anything, let us tell you that in general, scooters in India do not have gears. Yes, a few exceptions were there earlier but most of the automatic scooters around the world do not have gears and feature a Continuous Variable Transmission (CVT). For those of you who are still confused, CVT gearboxes are very much different from standard automatic gearboxes and use an input shaft and an output shaft with a belt connecting them.
How Does A Scooter CVT Gearbox Function?
As mentioned above, a CVT box consists of an input shaft, an output shaft, and a connecting belt. As the name continuous variable transmission suggests, this gearbox adjusts itself and the belt as per the engine output, which in turn is controlled by the driver. When the engine spins faster, the input shaft narrows up due to the centripetal forces. This makes it act like a larger gear and results in increased acceleration. Narrowing up of the input sheave causes an increase in the diameter of the input shaft. In response to this, the diameter of the output shaft decreases. In simple words, as the diameter of the output shaft decreases, the shaft spins faster and the acceleration is higher and vice versa.
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Pros and Cons of a CVT Gearbox
Manufacturers around the globe opt for a CVT gearbox when designing an automatic scooter as CVT gearboxes are assumed to be better than most other transmission options for two-wheelers. However, this does not mean that CVT gearbox do not have any shortcomings. Let us have a look at the Pros and Cons of a CVT transmission.
Pros
- Smooth to operate
- Lack of jerks make them more comfortable and convenient
- These are very reliable
- Not too many parts working parts are required
Cons
- These are not very efficient, i.e. there is a significant power loss
- Not everyone coming from a manual gearbox will like the feedback from such a powertrain
- A CVT gearbox is not meant to extract maximum performance from the engine
With this being said, what do you think about automatic gearboxes? Share your opinion in the comment box below and join our 91Wheels Telegram group.
