Since the advent of the automobile in the 1800s, car transmissions have undergone an epic transformation. Here is some of the history of the automobile transmission.
1894
1898
Louis Renault adapted Levassor and Panhard’s design by swapping the chain drive for a drive shaft and added a differential axle for the rear wheels to improve performance of the manual transmission.
1928
For approximately 30 years automobiles in the United States were built with a non-synchronized manual transmission based on the Panhard/Levassor/Renault design. However, in 1928 Cadillac introduced a synchronized manual transmission, which cut gear grinding by a significant amount and made the shifting process smoother.
1937
General Motors (GM) introduced the first semi-automatic transmission called the Automatic Safety Transmission.
1938
1939
Plymouth announced the first standard-equipment column shifter and sold it in their sales brochures as the “Perfect Remote Control Shifting”. Around that same time, Chevrolet and Ford also began offering column shifters in their vehicles.
1940s
As automatic transmissions became the transmission of choice for the next 20 years, the column shift was the most popular shifter of that time.
1950s
The early part of the 1950s brought about the first three-speed automatic transmission. Studebaker and Ford were among the first producers of three-speed automatic transmission cars. In 1953, Chrysler introduced their own two-speed torque converter.
1960s
By the 60s changing aesthetic tastes and a desire for high performance brought about an evolutionary change in automobile interior design. No longer were bench seats in the front of automobiles desirable. Bucket seats and center consoles became popular, which spurred design of floor shifters. By the mid-1980’s, column shifters had largely disappeared from passenger cars.
1970s & 1980s
In the late 1970s, three-speed automatic transmissions began to be replaced with models containing overdrive, in addition to more forward gears. By the early 1980s, almost every car manufacturer was producing their automobiles with overdrive. Overdrive transmissions offered more efficiency and greater fuel economy as compared to their three-speed counterparts.
2000s
As a result, the continuously variable transmission (CVT) has grown in popularity. With both fuel efficiency and a strong power delivery, the CVT lets the engine run at its most optimum RPM on a constant basis because it offers an endlessly variable set of gears. Additionally, CVTs are small and light, which is a good match for more compact cars.
In addition to CVTs, dual clutch and semi-automatic transmissions have made technological advances and gained in popularity. A contemporary semi-automatic transmission is akin to an electronically controlled manual transmission. It is light, efficient, and gives the driver the option to maintain full control over the shifting or put the transmission in fully automatic mode.
A dual clutch transmission uses two separate clutch discs, one for the even-numbered gears and one for the odd-numbered gears. A strong advantage to a dual clutch is that the transmission can have the next gear engaged even as the previous gear is released – thus creating a seamless and instant shift in gears.
Dual clutches can be costly to manufacture and maintain, which means they have yet to become solidly mainstream. However, enthusiasts argue that they do offer the best efficiency coupled with high performance.
2010s
By and large today’s cars are monitored and/or controlled by computers. Electronic vehicles, which are becoming increasingly popular in today’s market, often operate at torque, which means that there isn’t a transmission in the traditional sense. Nevertheless, contemporary gas-powered vehicles increasingly come with more fuel-efficient automatic transmissions pre-installed.