Automatic Transmission

It's automatic for the people.

Ford and General Motors signed an agreement five years ago to jointly develop nine- and 10-speed automatic transmissions as a way to lower costs and achieve higher fuel economy amid tightening federal rules. But now, Ford is saying no thanks to the nine-speed box developed by its crosstown rival.

More is always better, right?

A Mustang web forum offers further evidence to the speculated spread of Ford's 10-speed automatic to the Blue Oval's pony car.

A new study shows that far fewer people are ordering manual gearboxes on leased vehicles, and the drop even more pronounced among men.

BMW might abandon manual transmission for its M models, and the division could cap power to 600 hp for future vehicles.

Ford has filed a patent for an 11-speed automatic transmission and has outlined three ways of making it work.

When Skynet becomes self aware and takes control of all the autonomous cars and The Internet of Things and anything else with a computer, the resistance movement will want to track down guys like YouTube user Dan Mann for lessons in post-apocalyptic living. Mann has a 1979 Chevy C30 dually, and its SM465 manual transmission didn't agree with a herniated disk in his back. So he grabbed a General Motors 4L

Boo and hiss all you want, but the truth is that manual transmissions aren't for everybody. When Fiat launched the hot little 500 Abarth last year, it did so with a five-speed manual as the only transmission available, but according to Ward's Auto, that might change.

Among the future shocks to be shown at the rapidly approaching Geneva Motor Show, Land Rover will be displaying a nine-speed transmission it has been working with ZF to develop. Engineered for transverse – read: usually front-wheel drive – applications, the ZF 9HP will replace the six-speed transmission in the Evoque come 2014.

How many is too many? When you're talking the number of ratios offered in automatic transmissions, it seems the industry is always interested in adding one more gear; four-speeds turned into five, then six, seven and now eight. Where will it all end? According to Stefan Sommer, CEO of transmission maker ZF, nine is the ultimate endgame.

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid and Ford with partner with General Motors on new transmission technology. Has anyone dusted off that old Mayan calendar lately? We're not sure that a Ford/GM tech share speaks to the end of days, but we're not ruling it out, either.

Remember the Powerglide? An automatic with two forward speeds, it's almost inconceivable today that such a transmission was ever state of the art. Why, we've heard plenty of grumbling from the peanut gallery about Honda and its continued widespread use of a five-speed automatic when most of the rest of the world is offering six speeds. And then there are those carmakers engaging in the mine-is-bigger-than-yours battle of transmissions that resulted i

In an effort to appeal to a much wider range of shoppers, Chevrolet has announced that its turbocharged Sonic models will now be available with a six-speed automatic transmission. Up until now, manual-averse customers were stuck with the 1.8-liter naturally aspirated inline-four – by our opinion, the worse of the two engines offered in the Sonic.

What's eight plus two? If you guessed ten, then you'd be right. As in, right on the mark in answering a related question: How many forward gears will Hyundai's next-generation automatic transmission feature?

Lamborghini is apparently chomping at the bit to say arrivederci to the manual transmission. Motor Trend had a chance to speak with Maurizio Reggiani, Lamborghini's R&D director, and it appears that a manual gearbox doesn't fit into the automaker's plans for

German-based Schaeffler Group, a leading supplier of torque converters, says that it has developed an easily integrated stop-start system for vehicles equipped with automatic transmissions. According to Schaeffler, fitting a slushbox with stop-start tech is difficult because the torque converter between the engine and trans is always engaged. However, Schaeffler claims it has designed a permanently engaged starter that transforms the torque converter into, as Eric Loveday

Not so long ago, it was common for automatic transmissions to be referred to as slushboxes, since that's how they often behaved. Rather than use a mechanical clutch, traditional automatic transmissions use a fluid coupling between the engine and the gear-sets to transmit drive torque. This provides some benefits, but isn't a perfect system.

Mazda offers a good reason to choose an automatic – Click above to watch the video after the break