Nine is fine: Mercedes-Benz ends its cog race
German car-maker says enough is enough, won’t offer a 10-speed transmissionMercedes-Benz has announced that it will turn its back on the marketing potential of offering automatic transmissions with more and more gears because it’s found that nine speeds is the optimum number of cogs.
The news, revealed by Autocar magazine, follows an interview with senior Mercedes-Benz powertrain engineer, Marcus Sommer.
Sommer told the British mag that his firm would no longer attempt to outdo its rivals, including Ford and General Motors, who are both known to be readying a 10-speed automatic.
Volkswagen also recently shelved plans to rush a new 10-speed automatic to market.
Sommer said he’s confident nine speeds is the correct number of ratios following the completion of an incredible 81 billion different computer scenarios that attempted to unearth a single situation where nine forward gears weren’t enough.
The recently launched Mercedes GLS now gets a nine-speed auto for all engines apart from the GLS 63 AMG, which keeps its old seven-speed transmission for now.
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