It got gears but has infinite gear ratios like a cvt? It has 2 electric motors inside it, but one of them is the cars alternator? The whole thing sounds like magic.
In: Engineering
Planetary gearbox: there’s a gear in the middle called the sun gear, surrounded by rotating ‘planet’ gears, and then there’s a ring gear around the whole thing. All three can rotate, so you can create a load/speed split between the sun and the ring. So for instance if the planets are spinning at 100%, and you stop the sun, the ring spins at 100%. If you stop the ring, the sun spins at 100%. If you don’t stop either, the sun spins at 50% and the ring spins at 50%, or some other combination depending on the relative load (note: I’m using percent here because the actual RPMs can be different ratios, the key takeaway is that as one of the sun/ring spins faster the other spins slower)
The gas engine drives the planets.
The ring is connected to the drive wheels and an electric motor.
The sun is connected to an electric generator, which powers the motor on the drive wheels.
By controlling how much power goes through the generator and motor, you can achieve a “virtual” gear reduction (which is the ratio of planet/engine RPM to ring/wheels RPM). At low speeds, more power goes through the generator and motor, so the ring moves slow and the sun moves fast, creating a high reduction ratio. At high speeds, less power goes through the generator and motor, so the ring moves faster and the sun moves slow, creating a low reduction ratio.
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