Chrysler plant to get $843M for 9-speed transmissions

According to The Detroit News, Chrysler is investing $843 million in its Kokomo, Ind., manufacturing facility to prepare to produce a new 9-speed ZF transmission. The report says the transmission will find its way into the company’s front-wheel-drive products, which means that Chrysler will soon have high-gear-count transaxles across the board. A new 8-speed ZF transmission is set to land on the option sheet for some of the domestic automaker’s rear-wheel-drive platforms by the end of this year.

The new front-wheel-drive gearbox is a key piece of the company’s fuel-economy strategy. While Chrysler hasn’t said which models will receive the hardware, it could show up in vehicles such as the Chrysler 200 and Town & Country as well as the Dodge Avenger, Grand Caravan and Journey. Since those products have been handicapped by 4- and 5-speed automatic transmissions for years, the addition of a genuinely advanced drivetrain can only do good things for Chrysler's corporate average fuel economy.

The manufacturer has been making do with "good-enough" technology for years after being owned by names such as Daimler and Cerberus. By and large, that left Chrysler products feeling just short of competitive compared with rivals from Ford and General Motors -- and woefully unfit to match wits with products from Japan. A 9-speed transmission will put the automaker well ahead of its competition both here and abroad for years to come by simultaneously improving drivability and fuel economy; when combined with the recently introduced Pentastar V6 engine, it may even be enough to make the Chrysler 200 livable.

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