From the August 2016 issue
Despite our best efforts, the clutch, that fantastic frictional fuse between engine and transmission that has served us so long, has a dim future. With the manual gearbox criti­cally endangered and an industry-wide focus on efficiency, the smartest minds in engineering are now hellbent on excising energy-sapping friction discs, even those in dual-clutch automatics. Dan Dorsch, a Ph.D. candidate and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in the mechanical-engineering program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is one of those minds. In April, he won the Lemelson-MIT ?Drive it!? grad-student prize, awarded to the design demonstrating the best potential for societal benefit, economic success, and environmental impact.
Model Citizen

This working model only serves to illustrate what Dorsch?s gearbox can do, not how it will look. The finished product will disconnect the engine with a toothed dog-gear coupling (not shown, 001) and speed-match gears with the smaller electric motor (002) while the propulsion motor (003) drives the wheels (004).

Dorsch?s design is a hybrid-vehicle transmission that replaces the traditional clutch or torque converter with a dog gear, using interlocking teeth rather than friction to couple the engine to the gearbox. Dorsch?s design significantly reduces the size, weight, and friction losses of existing transmissions, but the overall concept is geared toward fast cars rather than economy hybrids. ...