GM and Ford jointly to develop new 9- and 10-speed automatic transmissions

Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. have signed an agreement under which both companies will jointly develop a new generation of advanced technology 9- and 10-speed automatic transmissions for cars, crossovers, SUVs and trucks.

The new transmissions, to be built in both front- and rear-wheel drive variants, will improve vehicle performance and increase fuel economy. The collaboration enables both automakers to design, develop, engineer, test, validate and deliver these new transmissions for their vehicles faster and at lower cost than if each company worked independently.

Engineering teams from GM and Ford have already started initial design work on these new transmissions. We expect these new transmissions to raise the standard of technology, performance and quality for our customers while helping drive fuel economy improvements into both companies’ future product portfolios.

—Jim Lanzon, GM vice president of global transmission engineering

This new agreement marks the third time in the past decade that GM and Ford have collaborated on transmissions. These collaborative efforts have enabled both companies together to deliver more than 8 million 6-speed front-wheel drive transmissions to customers around the globe.

Ford installs these 6-speed transmissions in vehicles such as the Ford Fusion family sedan, the Edge crossover and the Escape and Explorer SUVs, while GM installs them into products such as the Chevrolet Malibu, Chevrolet Traverse, Chevrolet Equinox and Chevrolet Cruze.

These original collaborations served as a template for the new one. As before, each company will manufacture its own transmissions in its own plants with many common components.

The goal is to keep hardware identical in the Ford and GM transmissions. This will maximize parts commonality and give both companies economy of scale. However, we will each use our own control software to ensure that each transmission is carefully matched to the individual brand-specific vehicle DNA for each company.

—Craig Renneker, Ford’s Chief Engineer, Transmission & Driveline Component & Pre-Program Engineering

Further technical details and vehicle applications for these transmissions will be released by each company at the appropriate time before launch.