General Motors is considering the introduction of continuously variable transmissions in its next round of small cars in an effort to improve fuel efficiency. According to a report from Automotive News, the Chevrolet Cruze is being considered for CVT application, as well as Bowtie’s smaller Aveo and Spark compacts.
In speaking with AN, Sohn Dongyoun, GM’s vice president of engineering at Daewoo, says that CVTs offer an easy, quick fix in order to help improve fuel mileage. Dongyoun says that GM will need to improve the fuel economy on its small cars by at least 10 percent in their respective next generations.
This will not be GM’s first application of CVTs. In the early 2000s, the automaker used CVTs in the Saturn Ioncoupe and Vue crossover, as well as the Opel Astra hatchback overseas.
This CVT was not well received, however, and was discontinued at the end of the 2005 model year. Currently, no word has been given as to whether or this GM’s new CVT would be developed in-house, or when we might see the first applications being offered.