The continuously variable transmission is much maligned for making more noise than actually helping propel a vehicle with a sense of progressive linearity, like with a manual or a step-gear automatic transmission. Automatics have gotten better and so have CVTs, compared to the crude examples in the earliest hybrid-electric vehicles 25 years ago, when CVTs became synonymous with efficiency rather than sporty performance. Audi ditched its Multitronic CVTs a decade ago, about the same time Jeep dropped the CVT from the Patriot and Compass.
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