Instead of stepped gears like a conventional transmission, it has a fixed planetary gear, and changes engine speed by adjusting the generator electric load.

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Gearboxes have traditionally been used to speed up the RPM from the rotor to the generator, but they are the weak link in the chain as you get larger.

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By applying the brakes or reducing speed by letting off the accelerator, the electric motor acts as an electric generator, converting energy that would otherwise be wasted into battery energy.

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In addition to the petrol engine and electric motor, the LF-CC hybrid drive system further comprises a generator, a high-performance battery, a power split device which, via planetary reduction gears, combines and re-allocates power from the engine, electric motor and generator according to operational requirements, and a compact power control unit to govern the high speed interaction of the system components.

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To speed things up, I took the text of all those tweets and dumped them into the word cloud generator at Wordle.net.

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