GM and Ford to jointly develop advanced automatic transmissions

Detroit, April 15, 2013: Ford Motor Co and General Motors Co have signed an agreement under which both companies will jointly develop an all-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,” said Jim Lanzon, GM vice-president of global transmission engineering. “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.”

A successful track record
The 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 durable, high-quality 6-speed front-wheel drive transmissions to customers around the globe.

Ford installs these 6-speed transmissions in some of America’s best-selling vehicles like the Ford Fusion family saloon, the Edge crossover and the Escape and Explorer SUVs, while GM installs them into a variety of high- volume products like 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 maximise parts commonality and give both companies economy of scale,” said Craig Renneker, Ford’s Chief Engineer, Transmission & Driveline Component & Pre-Program Engineering. “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.”

“With the jointly developed six-speed automatics we have in production today, we’ve already proven that Ford and GM transmission engineers work extremely well together,” said Joe Bakaj, Ford vice-president of Powertrain engineering. “Our 6F family of transmissions has exceeded expectations and there is every reason to believe we will have the same success with these all new transmissions.”

“This agreement provides tremendous benefits for both companies, and it will pay big dividends for our customers and shareholders,” added Lanzon. “By jointly sharing the development of these two new families of transmissions, both GM and Ford will be able to more efficiently use our respective manpower resources to develop additional future advanced transmissions and bring them to market faster than if we worked alone.”

Photograph: For the third time in the past decade, General Motors and Ford are collaborating on transmissions. GM's 6T70 6-speed automatic, front-wheel-drive transmission was developed out of one such collaboration.