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In F1 the major transmission manufacturer is Xtrac who have teamed up with Flybrid who have designed a ‘light’ flywheel of composite materials running in excess of 60,000 rpm and Torotrak’s CVT to handle the spin up and down of the flywheel.
The major concern with this type of Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is what happens to the energy when the flywheel disintegrates, which is bound to happen at some time. Flybrid think they have the answer with their composite material flywheel turning into particles on destruction which can be maintained within the special casing. We shall see.
I agree that to the layman, gyroscopic forces would be a concern, but the mathematicians seem happy with what happens with a light cylindrical flywheel at high speeds, maybe with two flywheels rotating in opposite directions.
Shell’s transmission fluid is not ‘sticky’ in the conventional sense. At low pressure the molecules are short and fluid, at high they lock together to form a near solid. Simple really, if you’re a clever chemist.
F1 certainly know how to chuck money at a problem. None of your odd $100,000 here or there, but loads of £m (for some reason, the world centre for racing engineering remains in England) and with their decision to ban development on engines for ten years, to concentrate on ‘green’ transmissions, the future looks rosy for those involved if the technology can be transferred to road vehicles.
It certainly seems to be coming together at last with this company. Obviously a long way to go yet, but it does strike me that many years of R&D with:
Ford
GM
Toyota
Aisin
Getrag
ZF
and others has brought the technology to a stage where it can be scaled and modelled to suit any application within a short timeframe. FLTs (of which we know there is at least one other company doing a full study) comes hot on the heels of F1 regenerative braking, which has the possibility of blowing current hybrids out of the water once up and running.
I suggest all it needs now is for the Memorandum of Understanding with the Asian car manufacturer to be converted into a full licence to transform this company completely. And this we are promised within the next month or two.
"I think anybody who owns a large vehicle is going to appreciate any fuel savings and they're going to be willing to pay for that."
A bit silly really isn’t it? To save money you have to pay more, especially when that extra money is spent on expensive electric motors and batteries, the latter a certain liability when it comes to sell the car due to their limited life.
I’m convinced that the automotive industry is in a stage of slowing down on introducing fuel efficient innovations for the very simple reason they are about to be forced to do so. Why market what you have developed now when the legislators will only move the goalposts if you do so? Far better to let them legislate on current performance and then wheel out that which they have up their sleeves.
hebe
For once I’ve started to get excited by something that Torotrak has done. On first reading I took this to be an application in a small (if prestigious) niche market. I’m sure the license fee per box would be considerably higher than that for road cars, but then there wouldn’t be that many of them.
Then I read the following article:
http://www.tbm-f1.de/articles.html
and it becomes clear that this could be very big indeed. Here is a system that would do away with all those silly electric motors and batteries that make the Toyota Prius so expensive to build and heavy to lug around. I can quite imagine that the weight of the total package for a road car would be a fraction of that used in F1, which in itself must be light enough not to hinder performance.
The only query I have is that of the gyroscopic effect going round corners, but then again, if it works in F1 it’s got to work on the road.
Lhasa,
The last sentence in your excellent heading reads:
Aisin (the world's biggest transmission manufacturer) have had for some time a task force of 60 engineers developing the transmission for a major, but as yet un-named, Japanese car manufacturer.
May I suggest this could be modified to take account of the wording in this year’s Finals:
Our work with Aisin has, more recently, involved us in direct discussions with Aisin's principal customer, a global vehicle manufacturer, as we have jointly progressed the development of the transmission for their target vehicle.
As it’s common knowledge that Aisin’s principal customer is Toyota, Torotrak have in effect now stated publicly for whom this work has been carried out.
Regards,
hebe
This set of results I generally found to be positive in as far as they went. That the Asian company has signed an MoU with the possibility of a full agreement to becoming a licensee within the next six months is of course the major feature, but there is much else besides.
The seeming delay with Infinitrak is neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned as all projects of this type take time to bed down and in with current production. Assuming all goes well, Infinitrak should be a major earner in a few years.
The tractor story is intriguing.
Torotrak has spent a fortune in developing IVT for that most difficult of all markets, the SUVs, as it was thought that if it could be shown to work in a high torque, high end markets, all others would fall into place as a matter of course. Tractors are easy in that you can make the transmissions as big as you like and as clumsy as you like, so long as they work and are efficient, they’ll do.
The time and money some of the worlds major tractor companies are putting into Torotrak’s IVT shows how far off the mark Torvec’s ‘production ready’ must be. All major projects need years and years of exacting engineering to make them ready for today’s sophisticated market and there is simply no way around this process. Anyone who thinks they can slot in with a new concept at the drop of a hat is living in cloud cuckoo land.
It was also pleasing to note that Aisin, the world’s largest transmission manufacturer, have as their client for Torotrak’s IVT their largest customer (and shareholder), who is of course is Toyota. This bodes well for the future.
For myself, I’ve reduced my holding in Torotrak. I certainly think it’s going to do well this year and thereafter, but the timescales involved I consider to be extended over other stocks I’ve identified and wish to get in to. For the moment I’ve held the bulk of my holding and will review this after any major announcement.
I think you’ll find the ‘fuel efficient’ product from Getrag is likely to be their dual clutch transmissions. These can be manufactured to give a ride similar to an automatic, but without having to have a torque converter.
Solomon isn’t the first company to lose a patent case against Toyota. Antonov, who have invented a six speed automatic/manual (I won’t elaborate further, but they are an interesting company if you wish to delve into them), took Toyota to court in Germany stating infringement of patents in the Prius and lost.
Validation of patents through a court is always an immensely complex, lengthy and costly business. I personally prefer dealing with companies who have taken out license agreements with OEMs as:
1) I’m certain that the OEMs lawyers are more competent than myself in determining the validity of a patent.
2) An infringement of a license agreement is far easier to argue in a court of law.
hebe
Dread,
Just over an acre of grass. I live out in the country and I’m a trees and shrubs man myself, not only because I prefer them but because they are so low maintenance.
I had a six speed which lasted for fourteen years before giving up the ghost which was then replaced with a hydrostatic four years ago. Most of the grass is open with the odd tree here and there, the most difficult area being an island with various bits and pieces in it, which are difficult to manoeuvre around.
No one was more surprised than me than with the change over from one machine to the hydrostatic that it cut the time down for mowing from two hours to just over one, simply because you are at the correct speed all of the time instead of stopping and changing.
Whilst MTD are very well known in England, the best selling makes are both English: Westwood and Countax. Both these makes have heavy duty steel and powered brush sweeping which suits the long wet spring and autumn seasons. When I say wet, this includes periods like the past two glorious weeks of wonderful continuous sunshine, still not strong enough to burn off the dew. I’ve always assumed that the majority of America doesn’t have these conditions, but perhaps I’m wrong.
Whilst Torotrak has obviously done well with its deal with MTD, I take the claims of quietness and fuel consumption as benefits with a pinch of salt. Anyone who can hear the transmission over the engine must be like a Tolkein warrior hearing an Orc fart five miles away, and anyone who measures the amount of fuel they use in a season deserves to take the place of you know who in the Merchant of Venice.
The one and only reason MTD has teamed up with Torotrak must be one of cost. That there are other advantages – well there may be, but simplicity in manufacture and maintenance must surely over-ride all else. Here I suppose we have the comparison with Torvec’s claims of reduction in part count, which I can well believe.
I repeat here that which I’ve said on the Torvec board in that I have no allegiance to any company. In fact I’m sick and tired with Torotrak at the current time for their lack of progress in signing deals, just as you must be with Torvec. One of my better companies has doubled over the past six months, I still have the majority of my holding, but I’ve top sliced into another which has gone up 20% in the week I’ve held it. That to me is the fun in investing, rather being a ‘Torvec’ or ‘Torotrak’ man.
I’m afraid I’m still not convinced with Torvec’s ‘production ready’ claim. Having spent my professional life as an engineer with a company who made specialist gauging tooling equipment for production lines, I have some knowledge of what goes into the steps required to make something production ready, albeit at a very late stage, but my goodness, a lot has to go in then.
Regards,
hebe
For what it’s worth, I’ve never really considered the fuel consumption of IVT in lawnmowers as any great issue.
John Deere seem to do well in selling hydrostatics, despite their inherent greater fuel usage, presumably because their greater versatility outweighs the disadvantage.
I personally have found that a hydrostatic drive is more fuel efficient than a six speed in lawn mowing, simply because it takes less time, though I’ve no doubt the drive itself is less efficient in terms of miles per gallon in the crudest of senses.
Whilst Infinitrak may well claim an improvement in overall efficiency over both six speed and hydrostatic, I would have thought both marginal as the majority of the power output is directed towards the cutters.
Well done indeed for your new write up Llasa; it certainly beats anything else on any other site.
Torvecian,
I’m sorry to disagree with you on certain points, but I don’t see how the Gleasman’s experience can put them in a unique position to know what ‘production ready’ means.
I really have no idea of the criteria applied for small scale production as may be required for the school bus project, but mass production is the name of the game for profit and the automotive market is surely the only real target.
If the Gleasman’s are the only people on the planet to know what production ready means, this excludes all the Vice Presidents of transmission companies around the world in charge of production.
These companies have recently spent $1,000m’s developing the current cash cow, the 6AT. Does it not tell you something that going from the 4AT to this newer model is not so much a leap in technology, but more of design? Despite the relatively simple task, the sums involved should give you an idea of how much effort is required to design, test, adjust, test and so on for every last minute detail. It is a process they have to go through and one which takes years to complete.
That Torvec may have something I don’t dispute, that they could run off a number of their prototypes I don’t dispute, but to consider that any automobile company, or any of their Tier 1s, could even contemplate bypassing all of their strict procedures – well, it’s just not going to happen.
Assuming that the technology is basically sound, the cost of developing this into a production model is huge and this cost must be borne by those who take the risk to do so. It’s one thing to take this risk in the first place, quite another to also burden the company with enormous costs for buying patents for which there is no absolute guarantee of success.
I should think the most likely route is one of either a low sale price for the patents, or some sort of licensing agreement, the latter being by far the better deal if you have confidence in a successful outcome.
hebe
I can understand how the hydrostatic drive works, but I’ve still to find a sheet which gives the efficiency of input/output over a range of speeds. Does anyone have this please?
Also, I understand the seals in hydrostatic drives are a concern. Whilst regular maintenance can easily be factored into such as John Deere tractors, this aspect seems more of a problem with the concept of a ‘sealed for life’ 200,000 mile automobile box. Any comments anyone?
Thank you.
hebe
Someone asked a little while ago if Torotrak had ever had a similar prestige product on par with the Moon Rover for NASA.
Apart from the IVT fitted to Harrier Jump Jets, Torotrak’s old parent company, BTG, held the patents for Sir Christopher Cockerall’s hovercraft. Their day of glory came when they took the American government to court for infringing these patents – and won.
For all the good it did their shareholders though, the hovercraft was a complete, total and utter waste of time and money.
By the way, I’m looking for information on the efficiency of the Torvec IVT as a percentage of engine output over a range of speeds. Can anybody help me here please? This is not in comparisson with other transmissions, but as a pure figure on its own.
hebe
allnumbers,
I don’t wonder around the world looking at ‘your’ company or to compare it to ‘my’ company; I don’t have any ‘my’ companies. I’m simply on the look out for shares to buy and sell at a profit. I’m still looking at Torvec, but I must admit their being years away from the automotive definition of ‘production ready’ worries me. The fact that they may be bought out at a high price interests me.
Torvecian states:
we as shareholders are not going to get what we want from those, high volume, low margin strategies</I>
for lawnmowers. Lawnmowers, I suggest, are in fact high margin producers, certainly a higher margin than the automotive market. Which high margin sector are you looking at?
Infinitrak is now in production for MTD with IVTs which are low cost and fuel efficient. Does anyone see this as a challenge?
I’ve been looking into hydrostatic drives and find that seals are a problem in that they typically have a shorter life than say piston rings. Is this a fair comment? I’m wondering if a Torvec IVT would be able to travel a typical 200,000 miles with no maintenance or if the seals have to be changed every x thousand miles.
I do so hope people don’t see me as being negative in any way. I’m simply trying to find out information in the best way I can and any positive answers would be most appreciated.
hebe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharonville_Transmission
Ford is not, as far as I'm aware, a licensee of Torvec's transmission and as such could not possibly be a contender.
Dread,
I think I’m beginning to understand Torvec’s idea of ‘production ready’, if from nothing else but your words ‘nothing customised’.
I take it that the school bus project could be carried out from the current design using parts and materials more or less standard. Fine. Of course this would be hugely expensive per transmission as there would still be many parts which are not standard, but as a demonstrator of the technology, this would obviously be a feather in Torvec’s cap.
Mass production proper does of course mean that every last little detail and part are customised to a new design after many thousands of hours testing, analysing, changing and repeating the process, usually several times. This is just a fact of life in the automotive business and there really is no way round it.
That Torvec are going for the stock swap option for their IP seems eminently sensible to me.
Historically, most transmission innovations have been brought forward in-house, if for no other reason than the horrendous cost of taking an idea from prototype to production is so prohibitive that it is beyond the pockets of all but those with a large R&D department with a profitable business in the background to finance it.
Antonov comes to mind as a business built on a simple but brilliant idea to improve efficiency using more or less standard parts, but even there, as a stand alone company they have had to dilute so much to keep going, it makes you wonder how much the original investors will see back.
Knowing how much it can cost to develop, I do wonder at what price the stand alone IP would attract. Frankly, I was amassed to read the detail given with the possible Shanghai Automotive deal as surely these are cards held close to the chest until the deal is done, usually not even then, but there we are.
Personally, I would have thought a deal involving a modest payment for access to the IP and then royalties on production would seem a logical course to take, but what do I know?
By the way, on traction fluid, I do know that it is neither sticky nor a lubricant. Shell have formulated a large molecule which is fluid under normal conditions and which locks up under pressure to form a near solid, reverting to a fluid on the release of pressure. This is just a fact of life which Nissan drivers with a Jatco transmission don’t even think about.
HeBe
Good spot Dino; certainly no one can accuse me of hiding under a variety of aliases.
As I mentioned before, my current style is to invest in tech stocks by hopping in and out of them as news ebbs and flows, a style learned in the past the hard way by holding on too long or not getting out when the signs indicated. I’ve found that not only is such a method profitable (why else are we here?), but it stopped me feeling too close to any company or that I was in some way part of it.
Yes, I’m long Torotrak at the moment simply because they should report start of production this month which should send the stock higher – we shall see. I’ve bought and sold several times in the past few years and I’m hoping for a decent rise so I can move over to pastures greener I’ve already identified.
I’m interested in Torvec at present as there is talk of an imminent deal so it’s only natural I’m doing my best to find out more. Stock markets like facts and figures. I’ve learned that if you delve deep enough into certain small tech stocks, you can inform yourself of information in the public domain totally ignored by the market at large, simply because they refuse to understand the full significance of it. Or you can buy a pig in a poke.
I take with a pinch of salt competitors claims that Torvec is ‘just another hydrostatic’ as it claims to be very much more efficient than others. Why? And don’t give me part count because over a hundred years of mass producing manual gearboxes has made them cheap as dust despite their complexity.
The only competitor acknowledged on this board is Torotrak with links to three posts I’ve shown to be uniformed at the very least. Is this not relevant to Torvec? Is NuVinci not a competitor along with at least a dozen other companies?
I tried to start a discussion regarding production timing. Torvec needs licensees to justify its current sp, licensees who intend to go into mass production rather than just a few school buses and a Moon Rover.
Let’s not get carried away by what the Chinese and South Koreans can do – they simply carry out orders from Japan and America as to what they want doing, and nobody is going to bring to market a brand new design of transmission in under five years at the very least, more likely ten. This isn’t WW11 where you chuck something out on a wing and a prayer and hope you have no re-calls, which could sink your entire company.
I’m still interested, but I would like some strong debate on the technology, the competition and the timing. Is this unreasonable?
Hebe
PS The DOW seems to be shrugging off things at the open.
People may care to peruse the Fallbrook site, which I see is going into production with of all things bicycles:
http://www.fallbrooktech.com/default.asp
You can find a video on the site, which explains the general working as well as a full list of applications. They claim full scalability on this design and as such may be considered a competitor. Interestingly, they use a traction fluid similar to that used by Torotrak.
For those who still think such a traction fluid is ‘inherently flawed’, the following link gives an outline of the Jatco transmission which has been in commercial use for a number of years using this fluid:
http://www.histomobile.com/histomob/tech/2/90.htm
Hebe gee bee
Thanks for that dread.
I was merely wishing to start a discussion on how the board viewed progress to production rather than inventive genius, as the former is surely the key to high stock price and I’m in this game for the money. I’ve no doubt that the Gleasman’s are highly talented people, but I’m wondering how their inventions can be turned into $’s.
The time scales I indicated were what goes on in the real world, like it or not. For instance, one of the companies I’m presently invested in has had Michelin as a licensee testing a tire pressure sensor for over five years. This as a matter of urgency after the Ford/Firestone blowout cases and the imminence of the TREAD act. If they do that for a sensor, who can doubt that a whole transmission is going to be any different.
Another example would be the current transmission cash cow, the 6AT. Despite the industry knowing to the nth degree how this works, Ford and GM are so daunted by the cost of producing their own design that they have gone into partnership to help save money - and it still takes years and a fortune to get the things rolling off the production line.
The first commercial IVT was in the Harrier Jump Jet to power the alternator. I imagine this is rather like the Lunar Rover in that you can do these things for high cost, small number projects, but different criteria reign in the world of mass production.
If Torvec sell their patents rather than license them, I suggest the buyer has many years and $100’s of millions to spend before seeing a return. Is this unrealistic and if so why?
Hebe gee bee
Hello,
This is my first post on this board, although it’s one I’ve kept an eye on over time. As an investor in tech stocks, I like to keep up with what other people are doing.
I’m always rather surprised that there seems to be little knowledge here of what is going on in the world of transmissions, or even the state of readiness of Torvec itself. The following is simply how I see things presently and is not meant to be a criticism in any way, if for no other reason than manufactures are secretive about their plans and nobody has a clear overview of the whole market.
The entire transmission industry has for some years been aware that fundamental changes are on the way and they have all been seeking their own solution to better performance and efficiency. It is simply not true that they are some sort of dinosaur, unaware of what is about to hit them. They are all aware of CVT and IVT as well as other solutions such as with Antonov, Zeroshift, dual clutch and many others.
CVT for instance has been in production for many years and despite its drawbacks technically, is very popular in countries such as Japan. IVT is still developing, but amongst others is being worked on by:
Aisin. The world’s largest transmission manufacturer has been working on IVT for years with a team of up to sixty people.
Jatco. The world’s second largest transmission manufacturer has its own design of IVT and is currently building a factory in Mexico to produce these.
Getrag. Another in the top ten has publicly stated that it sees IVT as the future and has a large team working on it.
There are others, but perhaps the above are the most advanced.
I read that Torvec is considered to be ‘production ready’. I would like to see a definition of this.
A working prototype is a start, but only that. Ford and GM for instance would need to work on such a prototype for years even before it was considered ‘concept ready’ by them. Once past the concept ready stage, there would then be another period of years working on production readiness. Once that stage has been reached, a decision then has to be taken to go into production, which would then take a further three years before the first models rolled off the line.
That is how it is in the automotive industry. If anyone thinks differently, perhaps they could explain why.
Hebe gee bee