All of the transmissions available in the market today is continuing to grow exponentially in the last 15 years, all while increasing in complexity. The effect is certainly that we are now dealing with a varied number of transmission types including manual, standard automatic, automated manual, dual clutch, consistently variable, split power and natural EV.
Until extremely recently, automotive vehicle producers largely had two types of transmitting to choose from: planetary automatic with torque converter or conventional manual. Today, nevertheless, the volume of options avaiable demonstrates the adjustments seen across the industry.

This is also illustrated by the many various kinds of vehicles now being produced for the market. And not only conventional vehicles, but also all electric and hybrid automobiles, with each type requiring different driveline architectures.

The traditional development process involved designing a transmission in isolation from the engine and the rest of the powertrain and vehicle. However, this is changing, with the restrictions and complications of the method becoming more more popular, and the constant drive among producers and designers to provide optimal efficiency at decreased weight and cost.

New powertrains feature close integration of elements like the prime mover, recovery systems and the gearbox, and also rely on highly sophisticated control systems. That is to make sure that the best amount of efficiency and overall performance is delivered at all times. Manufacturers are under increased pressure to create powertrains that are completely new, different from and better than the last version-a proposition that’s made more technical by the necessity to integrate brand elements, differentiate within the market and do everything on a shorter timescale. Engineering teams are on deadline, and the development process must be better and fast-paced than ever before.
Until now, the utilization of computer-aided engineering (CAE) has been the most common way to develop drivelines. This technique involves elements and subsystems designed in isolation by silos within the organization that lean toward verified component-level analysis equipment. While they are highly advanced tools that enable users to extract extremely reliable and accurate data, they are still presenting data that is collected without thought of the complete system.

We have actually summed up the bottom lines concerning Driveline gearboxes on our site.