A significant milestone has been passed in the success story of an advanced 8-speed automatic transmission, developed by Ricardo with one of China’s leading transmission suppliers.

The award-winning 8AT transmission was the result of a highly successful collaboration with Shengrui, in which Ricardo took engineering responsibility from concept to pre-production prototypes, including full responsibility for software and production calibration. This advanced transmission derived from an initial patent owned by Shengrui, and offers key advantages – including a relatively simple arrangement utilizing standard component design and manufacturing techniques. The resulting 8AT provides excellent shift quality, a highly compact design package competitive with less well specified products, and flexibility for further adaptation for four-wheel drive, integration with hybrid powertrain systems, and has the potential for application across a variety of torque capacities.

With the 30,000th unit milestone passed, production volumes continue to grow, now exceeding 6,000 transmissions per month. The 8AT is now sold in two SUV vehicle platforms and plans are being progressed to pursue further collaboration on the implementation of stop-start and hybrid 8AT variants of this impressive transmission.

“I would like to congratulate Shengrui on the achievement of the production of its 30,000th 8AT transmission,” commented Lee Sykes, managing director, Ricardo Driveline and Transmission Systems. “Ricardo is honoured to have been able to play a role in the very successful and longstanding collaboration with Shengrui that has led to the creation of this highly innovative and state-of-the-art transmission which is now enjoying considerable success in the market.”

Ricardo will be at the CTI Symposium and Transmission Expo, Berlin, on 8-9 December, at which the company will be displaying some of its latest transmission and driveline technologies and products – visit us at stand number D01.

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