Toyota e-CVT (Hybrid Synergy Drive)

Toyota's hybrid transaxle — in the Prius, Camry, Corolla, RAV4, Highlander, Yaris, C-HR, Crown, Sienna, Venza, Avalon and Previa, and across the Lexus range.

⚑ It is not a CVT and it contains nothing that a CVT contains. There is no belt, no chain, no pulleys, no clutch pack and no torque converter. A planetary gearset splits the engine's output between the wheels and a generator, a second motor drives the wheels directly, and the ratio varies continuously because the motors' speeds vary — which is why it behaves like a CVT to a driver and why every listing calls it one.

So the entire CVT failure literature is irrelevant to it, and that is the single most useful thing on this page. There is no belt to slip, no clamping pressure to lose, no launch clutch to judder and no fluid whose viscosity holds the drive together. A shudder, a flare or a slip on one of these is not the transmission — it is far more often the engine, a mount, or the hybrid system's own transitions.

What does fail is electrical and thermal: the motor and generator windings, the inverter, and the coolant loop that keeps the power electronics cool, which is separate from the engine's and is real maintenance rather than an upsell.

The gearset itself has very few moving parts and no wear items, which is why these reach extraordinary mileages in taxi service — the strongest available evidence about the design, and the reason a high odometer on one means less than it does on anything else here.

Honda's e:HEV is also called an e-CVT and works differently — a lock-up clutch rather than a power split — so the two share a name and an architecture family and not a failure mode.

⚑ Toyota builds this the other way round as well. The rear-drive Lexus saloons and coupes carry the same power-split idea in a longitudinal transaxle — the L110 and L210 — which has its own page here. A hybrid Lexus is not automatically this gearbox, and the two share nothing but the principle.