When I first started driving in the 90s it seemed like the 4 and 5 speed transmission was the best, modern transmission you could get. They were relatively reliable, and had enough gears to make acceleration, and fuel economy good in my Honda CRX.
Today, I can buy a Honda Odyssey with a 9-speed automatic transmission standard, and 10-speed on the high end model.
**What has changed in transmission engineering, materials science, and technology to allow more gears in the gearbox?**
What are the potential downsides? E.g. is the typical 10-speed as reliable as the old standard 5-speed gearbox?
Edit: To be more clear, this is an ENGINEERING, MATERIALS SCIENCE, and TECHNOLOGY question. I understand the benefits of having more gears for ride quality, and fuel efficiency.
In: Engineering
It’s general progress in the entire manufacturing process. The added part count of few extra gears isn’t really much of a extra cost with the general part count explosion for comparison. Modern car has much more parts and associated assembly operations than something from even few decades ago, its on the order of 30000 parts, depending on model and configuration of course. Each and every one of those has associated manufacturing, handling and assembly costs. Yet we can still afford cars. That’s because we have figured out how to do it all cheaper, automate as much as possible etc.
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