Ford Motor Co. and General Motors have recently 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 will be built for both front- and rear-wheel drive variants and will improve vehicle performance and increase fuel economy.
The collaboration will also enable the automakers to design, develop, engineer, test, validate and deliver these new transmissions for their vehicles faster and at a lower cost than if each company worked independently, so it does make perfect sense for both of them. In fact many manufacturers have begun to merge to bring down overall costs.
This 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. 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.