Your guide to automatic gearboxes - Continuously variable transmission

Essentially, another way of letting the car change gear by itself, using a combination of belts and pulleys. As the pulleys move closer together or further apart you get, theoretically, an infinite number of gear ratios, or ‘speeds’. However, many car makers programme six or seven speeds into their CVTs so that you can control changes manually.

Early CVTs rightly had a bad press, but most modern ones are good. The problem with some is that they can be strange for the driver: the level of engine noise is not always related to how hard you’re accelerating.