TEAM Industries along with technology development company, Fallbrook Technologies (Fallbrook) recently announced their partnership to develop electric vehicle transmission prototypes. The first initiative under the agreement is for the Tomberlin Anvil, a street-legal Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) offering a range of more than 40 miles.

"We are equally committed to improve both the performance and battery life of electric vehicles," said Rob Smithson, Fallbrook's vice president of business development and CTO. "Our NuVinci product line is ideal for this purpose and designed to allow an electric car motor to operate in a more efficient manner by continuously optimizing the electric powertrain for driving conditions."

Production of the resulting powertrain will occur at TEAM Industries' Minnesota-based facilities. "Working with Fallbrook on this initiative makes perfect sense for us," said Tony Passanante, senior director of marketing and strategic planning for the company. "Our core competency is designing and manufacturing systems that transmit power and put it to work quietly and efficiently."

Unlike conventional gear and clutch transmissions, the NuVinci continuously variable planetary transmission (CVP) uses a set of rotating and tilting balls positioned between the input and output components of the transmission that tilt to vary the speed of the transmission resulting in a seamless and continuous transition to any ratio within its range. "TEAM Industries is committed to developing innovative products that advance electric vehicle driveline systems," Passanante said.

"We're continually searching for leading suppliers capable of providing technologies to make our eco-friendly automobiles more compelling and exciting than anything else like it on the market," said Michael Tomberlin, CEO of Tomberlin. "That means offering improved hill climbing, acceleration and towing capacity as well as other rider benefits in our vehicles. Developing systems that enable electric vehicles to enhance performance is a key step towards achieving that goal, thus we are very pleased to support the Fallbrook-TEAM development initiative for that reason."