Recently, seems like the automobile manufacturers compete each other, who will develop more sophisticated gearbox.
Back in 1980’s, the cars with 5-speed manual gearboxes were very rare and the automatic transmission were with only 3 or 4 speeds.
In the 1990’s, the premium brands – Audi, BMW, Mercedes, VW started to install 6-speed manual gearboxes and 5-speed automatics.
During the last 10 years, VW released DSG – 7-speed double clutch transmission, Mercedes came up with 7G-Tronic and nowadays BMW and Lexus put in their vehicles 8-speed automatic transmissions. The „pioneer” in creating transmissions with many speeds is Mercedes, they were the first to install 7G-Tronic in 2003 in their models.
Of course, it is turn to Mercedes to show their excellence and create a nine-speed automatic gearbox – 9G-Tronic. It will improve the fuel efficiency and reduce the CO2 emissions. The new automatic will probably debut on the 2012 Mercedes-Benz S-Class.
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