Koenigsegg Reinvents The Manual! How The CC850 Transmission Works

hello everyone and welcome koenigsegg has unveiled the cc-850 and with it they've basically reinvented the manual transmission it's extremely cool so in this video we're going to be explaining how it works okay so i have two main drawings here on the whiteboard the first one is a traditional manual transmission with two speeds just so we can see how it operates and then the other is koenigsegg's new transmission and this is based on the light speed transmission which was used in the koenigsegg jesco so this new transmission koenigsegg is calling ess and the first thing i want to do is break down mechanically how does this differ from a traditional manual transmission so we start with our engine of course and then we work our way to driving our wheels so both of these have an engine great unfortunately the manual's got a v6 koenigsegg's got the v8 that's a nice touch there the flywheel a manual transmission of course using a flywheel which would be here in purple connected with the clutch the pressure plate uh the conning sig system does not use a flywheel so you're just going straight from the engine into the transmission and spinning gears a manual transmission has a single clutch right there and that is your disconnect between the engine and your driven wheels with koenigsegg you have seven of these clutches so anywhere i've drawn this little red that is a clutch within this transmission so all seven of those being points where you can use to disconnect between the engine and the driven wheels as far as how many forward speeds do you have traditional manual transmissions today by today's standards you're gonna probably have six to seven forward speeds plus a reverse with koenigsegg's ess when you're in manual mode you have six forward gears and then when you're in automatic mode you actually have nine forward gears so you're choosing between automatic and manual and when you're in manual you do have a reduced number of gears so you don't have this super clunky shifter with you know nine gears that you're selecting between so we'll get into how it switches between the six and nine gears there but the point being that mechanically they both do have gear selectors they're just different in how they operate so with the manual you're going to use that gear shift that's going to move a shift fork push a collar into synchros which will engage it with the selected gear you don't have that with the koenigsegg transmission so you don't have the fork or the collars or the synchros you're just using clutches in order to switch gears okay so we understand mechanically how these transmissions differ but how does koenigsegg's transmission actually work so we have our power coming from our engine and that engine power needs to make its way to the driven wheels in order to get there first it has to choose between three of these gears so each of these gears in blue is on a bearing and they're connected to a clutch and that clutch connects them to this shaft right here so as that power comes in one of these clutches engages here so you've got three options here and then that sends power to one of these three gears here which also each have their own individual clutch so you choose one clutch here you choose one clutch here and that connects a pathway for that torque to make it to the driven wheels so you have three up here three down here three times three that gives you nine forward speeds now with manual mode again they're going to limit how many forward speeds you actually have so you don't have this clunky shifter and so in order to do so you're just selecting six of those nine available speeds so when you're in this normal driving mode you can see here what koenigsegg chooses second gear is actually first gear with manual mode and then fourth gear in automatic is actually second gear in manual mode and then they just cascade down from there so they do slightly differ in their gear ratios because with that manual mode you're going to be starting in a second gear okay so to recap how the automatic mode works before we get into the operation of the manual mode for any of our nine gears we need to use two clutches so for example for gear one we're using clutches one and four so this clutch is engaged and this clutch is engaged and that means our power flow goes through that one goes through that one and out to our driven wheels now to switch to second gear we're now using clutches one and five so four is going to open up five is going to engage and then we have our power flow come through one go through five and that is our second gear and then for third you use one and six and so on through your nine gears okay so now let's understand how the manual mode works and first we'll start with the gear selector so if you take the gear selector and you move it all the way over and then down to the right that's going to put it in drive and it's going to operate like a automatic transmission and it'll just go through these nine gears as it sees fit if you take that selector and then put it in to this manual selection region where you have this gated shifter of one through six then it puts it over into manual mode and then your gears suddenly switch over from the nine available options to these six available options again each correlating with two clutches in order to have that gear ratio so you have your one two three four five and six correlating with two four five six seven and eight okay so here's where the real beauty of this transmission comes in how does it operate in manual mode so let's say for example we want to start accelerating in first gear so we need to put the car in first gear well just like a traditional manual transmission in order to put it in gear the first thing you have to do is press in that clutch pedal so you press in the clutch pedal with your left foot and then you go to select first gear with the gear selector now when you push in that clutch pedal all of these clutches are open there's no connection between the engine and the driven wheel so that clutch pedal says hey everything's open when you then select first gear all right remember first gear is second in the automatic so we're using clutches one and five so it knows now okay these are the clutches that we're going to be using for the current gear we're in which is our manual first so what it does is as you select that first gear with the shifter it's going to go ahead and already engage one of those clutches so let's say clutch 1 is already engaging and it's position sensitive so it's how far you push in uh that selector is how much engagement you have with the clutch so once it's fully in place that first clutch is fully engaged now you just have one clutch that's open and needs to be closed in order for that power to make it all the way to the wheels so again it's position sensitive it's important as you're selecting it there's a monitor of where is that selector and that's choosing how much do we engage the first of the two clutches then remember our left foot still has that clutch pedal down we release our left foot and our left foot is perfectly controlling how much engagement you have with this clutch right here so this is already engaged as our left foot comes out this engages and then you have power flow in your first gear which again is your automatic second and it goes to your driven wheels super cool okay so what happens when we now want to switch from first to second gear so when we're in first gear we're using clutches one and five we now wanna switch to second gear which is using clutches two and four so we're using these two clutches right here and we wanna switch to these two right here so the first thing of course that you're always doing is pushing in the clutch pedal right so we have one in five engaged as we press in that clutch pedal the clutch pedal will disengage clutch five so now all of these are open the only clutch engaged is one as we take that gear selector and move it from one to two we're gonna deselect one so we're gonna disengage this clutch and we're going to engage two so that's what's happening as that shifter goes from one to two we switch between this clutch to this clutch then our clutch pedal now starts to only control clutch four and so that's where our engagement with our foot comes in as we release the clutch pedal now that clutch pedal controls the engagement here and so you engage that you get in second gear and your power flow goes through second and then you have that gear ratio selected so you just use that same methodology with each of these corresponding clutches as you work through the gear selector works for one of those clutches and then the clutch pedal uh finishes off that motion and so the engagement between the engine and the driven wheels is ultimately controlled all by that clutch pedal now a couple of interesting comments on how this gear selector works so because you have this kind of electronic control of what gears you're going to be using you can actually change what each of these gears represent by using a different mode so for example in normal mode first gear will be second gear of the automatic in track mode you don't really need these really low speed ratios once you get out there on the track you're going to be using the higher gears once you actually start moving so for track mode it'll start out with second gear being first but then first will actually become third gear once you get going so once you you know you take off you start driving around you go into second gear third gear in the manual if you are to come back to first gear it is no longer automatics equivalent of second gear it is now third gear so then you have this really tight ratio uh with you know that perfect little drop in rpm for each gear shift because you're keeping all of your ratios you know within that compact range right there three through eight equals one through six when you're on the track you change that when you're driving on the road so one is always equal to two and you have that flexibility because this is essentially shift by wire and you're electronically controlling based on the shifter's position how much you engage the clutch now you might reasonably wondering well wait a minute how do i know if i need to use the clutch for reverse or not and it's basically built into the logic of the car if you come from automatic mode you were in drive and you put it over into reverse it's just going to stay automatic because it saw that you came from an automatic driving mode if you come from first gear over here in manual mode and then you stick it into reverse it knows hey you are using that manual mode so the clutch pedal is then going to operate this reverse clutch here and so that's where you're going to use the clutch pedal for reverse gear but if you put it down into drive then to reverse you don't actually use the clutch pedal it controls that automatically okay so now that we understand how it works i want to talk about the differences versus a traditional manual transmission starting with the clutch so of course the clutch in this scenario is by wire and you know a couple enthusiasts out there are going to get enraged throw everything in the air and say none of this makes any sense i hate it but that's silly because although it's clutch by wire it's perfectly controlling the engagement of the clutch so yes the clutch pedal itself is not moving a hydraulic fluid however it is perfectly matching how much you engage that clutch pack and that's ultimately what is important are you actually controlling a clutch pack or are you not and with this coding seg transmission that's exactly what you're doing with that pedal and so you say okay well what do i feel through that pedal well what they do is they just take you know a force versus travel curve so how much feedback how much resistance do i get depending on how much i push in the clutch pedal on you know a previous koenigsegg manual transmission and they just duplicate that force uh that feel in the clutch pedal so it's going to feel you know very similar to a traditional clutch pedal you're just not actually moving a hydraulic fluid with that pedal all that hydraulic actuation is done electronically but you're controlling you know perfectly synced uh with where that pedal is how much you engage that clutch i think it's also worth mentioning that a lot of the feel in driving a manual transmission doesn't necessarily come through that clutch pedal you know you mess up for example if you let the clutch out too quickly because the engine stalls and you feel that vibration pass through the whole car well you can do the same thing with this transmission if you let out the clutch way too quickly the engine will stall and you'll feel those vibrations passing through the core so it's not like every uh aspect of feel is passed through that pedal some of it passes through the core and you still have that and you can still stall it acts just like a manual transmission okay now for the shifter and the shifter is also by wire and i think you know part of the thing here is if you think about a traditional manual transmission you can kind of think of selecting gears as like an on off switch you're either in the gear or you're not right and there is a feel associated with it right because you're moving that shift work you're moving a collar and you're putting it into gear with those synchros but there is there's really just are you in gear or are you not in gear and with this you're still adding an element of control with that shifter so yes the feel itself is designed in how it feels but you are actually controlling something you're controlling the engagement of that first clutch so there is a role of that shifter and you are given the control rather than computers doing all of it and i think that's the whole beauty of manual transmissions right it's that you are actually controlling how the shift is occurring all right let's get into advantages and disadvantages and of course the huge advantage here is really that you have the best of both worlds you've got a manual you've got an automatic if you're sitting in traffic and you don't want to deal with the manual hey put it in automatic mode and don't worry about it if you're going on a long road trip and you want to switch drivers with your friend but your friend doesn't know how to drive manual hey no worries put it in automatic mode i don't know if you can do that with the kunichik but you know you get it you can the option is there you have more gears here with the konig six so you've got nine total choices and from that you have that flexibility with the manual mode of choosing between those nine gears that's more than most manual transmissions have you can also put in aspects of control like preventing a money shift where if the engine rpm would go too high based on the gear that you selected it just won't engage the clutch it won't say hey you're going to break your engine intentionally no and i don't know whether or not they do this but they allow for that control so some of the silly aspects of you know manual transmissions that you could really damage it you could take that out if you wanted to it sounds like they leave in a lot of that authenticity because they allow you to stall and clearly they could put in a control that says hey you're doing something wrong we're not going to let you stall so i think it's cool that they do let you stall the transmission they do allow for you to make mistakes but you could tune in this programming that allows for you to prevent catastrophic damage from something like a money ship also this transmission is extremely light and compact and it's actually pretty simple if you think about all the forks and selectors and collars and synchros and all that that goes into a manual transmission this is actually really simple you've just got these seven clutches here that you're dealing with and koenigsegg says i believe that it's actually lighter than their manual transmissions that they've used in the past so they're saving weight and uh you know in some aspects complexity and you still have an automatic and a manual it's kind of beautiful how that all worked out now it's not all advantages right there are some disadvantages um first of all you know when you're picking from nine gears and then you're choosing six of them that could mean that some of your ratio steps could be too extreme right going from two to four maybe that's too much of a drop off but that's how it's going to be for you know manual driving around town in normal mode for track mode that's not as big of a deal because you're just selecting three through eight and that basically means you're going to have these perfect steps for each gear but nonetheless it could be a problem where you know your ratios aren't perfectly matched for the manual transmission and then finally people are going to complain no matter what because these are clutch by wire and these are shift by wire which traditionally isn't done with manual transmissions my counter to that though is that everything today is throttle by wire so all of the manual transmissions that exist out there as production cars they're using throttle by wire and it doesn't matter that it's throttle by wire that doesn't make it good or bad what makes it good or bad is how well synchronized that throttle by wire is with your foot so if your foot's position is always perfectly matched with the throttle position great no one will care if you drive a porsche gt3 around a modern porsche gt3 with a manual transmission you're not going to care about that throttle by wire it's a beautiful throttle and it's insanely responsive if you drive a really trash modern throttle by wire then you're gonna say hey that sucks so it's not that it's throttled by wire that's the problem the problem is whether or not it's perfectly synchronized and as long as that throttle pedal and the throttle opening are actually perfectly synchronized then who cares it's going to be great and that's how i feel honestly about the clutch pedal and the selector in this case i think as long as it is well done and you don't you know perceive these delays between when you ask for something when you get it who cares let it be done because it allows you to have such a cool experience driving this car now there's one more thing that i must go over because i don't like presenting inaccurate information however if the goal is education i think simplification works out a lot so this drawing right here is a much simplified version of koenigsegg's transmission so it's expanded out it's two-dimensional and it's not an accurate representation of what the transmission actually looks like i'll put up an image to kind of give a better idea of of what it would be like but still again that's 2d so you have to keep in mind that you know these gears here aren't going to be way over here it's all going to be compact and these three shafts here aren't going to be like all in a line right it's going to be more like a triangle it's going to be three-dimensional and they're all going to be much closer together that means this reverse gear is not so gigantic and the other big inaccuracy here is how these clutches are labeled right so you could theoretically have it work out how how i've written it here however realistically what's gonna happen is you know your first gear might be this and this your second gear might be this and this and then your third gear might be this and this right it's not gonna be this beautiful okay one two three four four five six seven eight nine it's not going to be that simple uh because of how these gear ratios work out so you can see that this is large this is large that's means it's going to be a very high gear ratio so it's going to be one of the lower gears like one but this multiplied by this is also very large so it's not going to be fourth year it's probably going to be you know like second or third probably third gear and this multiplied towards this small little gear right here that's going to be a higher gear so i have it labeled as third here realistically that's probably like five or six so how this is all written out is simplified to make it easy to understand realistically it's going to be a bit different and i'll also include what the actual gear ratios are for the automatic mode on the screen so you can take a look at those if you are curious if you would like to watch a video purely on the light speed transmission and learn more about this transmission i have that that you can check out thank you all so much for watching and if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below

Channel: Engineering Explained

Views: 933,512

Keywords: koenigsegg, manual transmission, koenigsegg cc850, koenigsegg manual transmission, automatic transmission, light speed transmission, koenigsegg jesko, ess, lst, engaged shifter system, engineering explained

Id: Hvb6J96KiSM

Length: 19min 1sec (1141 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 02 2022