Kia Motors has revealed details of its new eight-speed automatic transmission, a gearbox engineered for use in front-wheel drive vehicles.
The Korean automaker says it has developed the new transmission in-house, engineering it to offer “a high level of mechanical efficiency and smooth gearshifts”.
Kia claims that the new FWD 8AT occupies the same space as a conventional six-speed automatic transmission, and weighs some 3,5 kg less.
Kia has, of course, already developed an eight-speed transmission for rear-wheel drive vehicles, mounting the transmission longitudinally and sending power to the rear axle.
However, incorporating the same number of gears into a front-wheel drive car is rather more challenging, due to packaging constraints and the need to mount the transmission transversely, competing with the engine, suspension and auxiliary components for space under the bonnet.
The automaker says the new transmission has been under development since 2012, and led it to patent as many as 143 new technologies.
Kia says its engineers significantly reduced the size of the oil pump and simplified the structure of the valve body. Development teams also incorporated a direct control valve body to allow solenoid control of the clutch directly, rather than via several control valves. This enabled Kia to reduce the number of control valves from 20 to 12, resulting in quicker gear shifts, a more direct mechanical link to the engine and improved packaging.
The new gearbox will make its global debut in the 2017 Kia Cadenza, and will be featured as standard on Cadenza models powered by the 3,3-litre V6 GDI engine. But Kia says the new eight-speed automatic transmission will be applied to a “number of mid-sized and larger front-wheel drive models” going forward.
Learn more technical details in the video below…
