That £6k bill would buy an awful lot of extra fuel and the extra VED incurred by the small savings over a torque converter box.

People neglecting their cars costs them untold money and misery, will they listen to a bit of common sense and hard earned experience, will they heck.

Two thoughts - mostly concerning futility of the increased complexity:

- 11 gears makes it theoretically less useful than a CVT transmission - but no more effective in real life. Perhaps the brainpower should have been devoted to optimising CVT transmissions

- most engine designers pursue a useful spread of torque across a wide rev range. Somewhat pointless with either CVT or 6+ gear renges.

I have wondered whether I would really notice if my 6 speed manual Octavia gearbox was reduced to a slightly more widely spread five. The costs of 11 speeds and 3 clutches must substantially outweigh any operating cost benefits.

You would think it was the Germans, but no, after reading the rest of the article i can confirm the idea comes from across the pond.

Darrell L Robinette, assistant professor at the Michigan Technological University is the brains behind this 11 speed triple clutch (+ 2 reverse gears!) developed jointly with GM.Seems like they envisage that different types of drivers will use different gears depending on their driving style etc, rather than the box using all the gears all of the time. Still, seems incredibly complex, and given the aim is to keep the engine in the 'sweet spot' as much as possible, something the (much more reliable) CVT gearbox has already been doing for many many years. Granted, some people really dont seem to like them, but surely the boffins could make them work more like people seem to want them.

Interesting to read about mentalist Swedish supercar maker Koenigsegg's Regara, in which, by comparison, they have gone to the complete opposite end of the scale by doing away with the gearbox (as we know it) completely!. The 5.0 turbo V8 uses direct drive at a ratio of 2.85:1 (for those who understand such things, not like me!) along with 3 electric motors to fill in the gaps and deal with menial things such as reversing and driving at sub warp-speed!. A top speed of 249mph can be reached from a standing start in 'less than 20 seconds' and apparently it will go from 93-155mph in 3.2 seconds.

Anyway, my wife will be taking delivery of her CVT jazz in a few weeks, so we will see how that goes. The last car i was in with a CVT gearbox was my Dads DAF 55 way back in the very early 80's!