Kia applies 8-speed auto box to FWD

Kia Motors has a new eight-speed automatic transmission (8AT), engineered for use in front-wheel drive vehicles, but based on RWD experience.

No downside to light-weighting – claims Jaguar

Dr Mark White, chief technical specialist, lightweight vehicle technologies at Jaguar, and an architect in helping Jaguar to pioneer the use of aluminium body-in-white (BIW) structures claims: “There is no downside to light-weighting.”

JLR to open 300,000/y car plant on Slovakia

JaguarLandRover (JLR) is to build a new manufacturing plant in the city of Nitra in western Slovakia to build aluminium-intensive vehicles from 2018 onwards.

MAN and Scana to co-develop truck gearbox

MAN and Scania, heavy truck makers under the Volkswagen AG umbrella, link arms to develop a new transmission for their joint use, but how will ZF react?

The first fruits of their joint endeavours are likely to appear in 2016 and it is understood that vehicles carrying prototype components are already under evaluation.

Audi revives UK development – 30 years later

Audi has revived a concept developed by GKN over 30 years ago – namely glass-fibre reinforced polymer springs for vehicles.

Audi’s new, lightweight suspension coil springs are made of glass fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP), and will appear in an executive class Audi model before the end of the year. GKN tried to introduce GFRP leaf springs in light trucks in the 1980s.

Mercedes launches AMTs for Atego range

Mercedes-Benz is to launch its new Atego light- and medium-duty truck series at the IFAT 2014 exhibition in Munich, Germany this month.

For the first time, the company will introduce an automated mechanical transmission (AMT) in lightweight trucks.

Land Rover expands V6 diesel use

New uses continue to be found for the Ford V6 diesel engine built at Dagenham, UK, the latest being the Range Rover Hybrid Long Wheelbase unit launched at the Beijing motor show. 

Together with the Range Rover Sport Hybrid, this will be the first diesel hybrid model from any manufacturer to be offered in China.

Cummins/Nissan launch concept pickup truck

The US pickup truck market looks to be evolving further as Cummins and Nissan chose the Chicago Auto Show to unveil their ‘technical study’ known as the Nissan Frontier Diesel Runner.  

Following the decision by Chrysler to engine its Ram 1500 pickup truck with the VM Motori V6 diesel engine (using a compacted graphite iron (CGI) cylinder block) and the arrival of the new crown-bearing Ford F-150 pickup truck with a brand new 2.7-litre V6 gasoline engine (also with a CGI block), Cummins and Nissan have decided to cement their relationship further with the new ‘concept’ truck

Ricardo/JLR in I4 engine pact

Will Ricardo provide valuable engineering support to help JaguarLandRover (JLR) integrate its new Hotfire four-cylinder gasoline and diesel engines into the car maker’s products when then engines appear in 2014/2015?

 A clue to the answer perhaps can be found in the latest issue of Ricardo’s house magazine RQ. The concluding sentence in an article describing Ricardo’s role in the integration of Land Rover’s I4 gasoline engine into the latest XF and XJ products states: ‘For Ricardo it is another box ticked and an already successful relationship is moving from strength to further strength’.

Without doubt, the joint work by engineers from JLR and Ricardo to integrate the four-cylinder gasoline engines into cars initially engineered for vee-engines is a substantial task if the same essential vehicle attributes are to be retained. That joint work no doubt will be of direct benefit in the future when JLR comes to integrate the new Hotfire I4 gasoline and diesel engines into a range of vehicles. Hotfire will be manufactured at site i54 near the M54, Wolverhampton.

Daimler readies nine-speed gearbox

JaguarLandRover (JLR) will not be the only European passenger car maker to offer a nine-speed automatic transmission. Daimler in Germany is working on one too that will appear first in its AMG offering and other large cars.

Daimler’s Mercedes transmission plant at Stuttgart Untertuekheim is currently the scene of much activity as some of the latest machine tools are being put in place ready for the start of production.

All the machines delivered to the plant have passed pre-acceptance trials in vendors’ plants. The implication is that they have achieved both quality and cycle time criteria for one of the Europe’s most demanding customers.