in March of this year, the NEW ZF transmission factory broke ground, they will make the ZF 8 speeds
“The new eight-speed automatic transmission will offer our customers refinement and comfort while achieving greater fuel economy and performance,” said Paolo Ferrero, senior vice president of Chrysler's powertrain division. “We look forward to integrating the new transmission into future Chrysler Group products and welcome its contribution to a corporate fuel economy improvement of more than 25 percent by 2014.”
Chrysler will initially
import 8HP transmissions from Europe until it finishes a $300 million revamp of its existing transmission manufacturing and casting facilities in Kokomo, Ind. to produce the 8HP there, starting in 2013.
Indiana Transmission Plant 1 currently makes the 545RFE "Orion" five-speed automatic transmission for Dodge Dakota and 5.7-liter Hemi-powered Ram full-size pickups and the 68RFE six-speed auto for Heavy Duty pickups with the 6.7-liter Cummins diesel engine (which produces more torque than the 8HP can currently manage).
Most of the transmissions used by Chrysler will be made at the automaker’s Kokomo, Indiana, Transmission Plant but some will be built by ZF itself at a new transmission plant in
Greenville, South Carolina. Chrysler is investing $300 million in the Kokomo plant. The new ZF facility, the first ZF plant to make car transmissions in the USA, will also make the 9-speed automatic transmission for transverse-mounted engine applications that was presented at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS). Groundbreaking for the new plant is scheduled for February.
The ZF eight-speed automatic is made in several different forms, including an AWD version and a version with a built in DynaStart electric motor, with 20 horsepower (15 kW) of power, making it into a parallel-hybrid transmission. The key advantages of the transmission are not so much the eight speeds (which help to keep the engine in its optimal range, and reduces the number of tradeoffs required in tuning), but the high efficiency — a claimed 98% efficiency in any gear, with an extremely rapid locking torque converter — and high speed, with shifting taking place faster than a person can perceive it.
http://www.allpar.com/mopar/transmissions/ZF8.html
ZF 9 speed transverse transmission
What ZF is doing with the 9HP for transverse mount applications (which accounts for 80% of current car production) is leapfrogging the six speed competition with three extra speeds. And ZF isn’t saying how they’ve managed to do that. The first thought is that it will be limited to pretty small engines, that don’t have a lot of torque. Say, four, three, and probably even two cylinder units. Since the first user of the 9HP is supposedly Chrysler, that would make some sense. Chrysler could use all the extra fuel economy they can find what with the prominence of ’Hemi’ in their sales pitches. And Fiat has a two cylinder ‘multiair’ engine that could plug into a small Chrysler.
However, the 9HP’s torque limit is said to be 295 lb-ft, per an article by K. C. Colwell in Carlovers Magazine. That’s plenty of capacity to handle a good turbo four. That’s just a bit more torque than Nissan’s CVT has to deal with in the V6 Maxima. And ZF makes a CVT also, so there has to be a good reason to build a nine speed automatic rather than utilize the existing CVT, right? Well CVT’s haven’t been accepted by US consumers and the 9HP may also better fuel economy than a CVT to boot.
http://www.insideline.com/chrysler/zf-9-speed-box-in-future-chryslers.html
company that is building the factory(s)
http://www.midlandsbiz.com/articles/7253/