Ford and GM are working on future 9- and 10-speed transmissions

How far will the race to keep adding gears to gearboxes go? Today we have some 8-speed gearboxes and many that are already 7-speed, but Ford and GM are willing to raise the stakes further; both manufacturers are already working on 9- and 10-speed gearboxes, due to reach the market soon.

While GM’s design is focused on a 9-speed unit for use in front-wheel-drive vehicles, Ford has leaned towards 10 ratios for rear-wheel-drive vehicles, as well as pick-ups, SUVs and high-performance cars.

This joint venture will see the light of day in the coming months, when it moves beyond a previous memorandum of understanding to a new final agreement between the two brands that would allow manufacturing of these automatic gearboxes to begin in 2015. Each specific area of each brand is currently in the first design phase.

Adding more and more gears to gearboxes is a way of saving fuel, keeping the top gears almost exclusively for maintaining the car’s motion on the road at the lowest possible engine speeds.

Source | Automotive News