the.com/gearbox
the unsung translator turning an engine's frantic spinning into something a wheel can actually use
means The casing full of meshed cogs that converts an engine's speed and torque into the ratios the wheels actually need, letting you crawl uphill or cruise on the motorway.
from A plain English compound of "gear" plus "box," born of the machine age. "Gear" is an old Germanic word — related to Old Norse "gervi," meaning equipment or gettings-ready — that long meant any apparatus or harness before it narrowed to the toothed wheels of machinery. "Box" comes via Latin "buxus," the boxwood tree from which small containers were once carved. So the word is literally what it says: the box that holds the gears, a name as honest as the part is overlooked.
- gear ratios
- trade speed for torque, or vice versa
- formula 1
- shifts gears in under 0.05 seconds
- manual decline
- under 1 percent of new US cars
- reverse gear
- often just an extra idler gear inserted
- CVT
- has infinite ratios, no fixed gears at all
porsche 911 pdk — dual-clutch automatic with 7 or 8 speeds, used since 2008 in the 911
ford f-150 10-speed — 10-speed automatic transmission introduced in 2017 for the f-150 pickup