ZF plans new plug-in hybrid transmission for 2025

LAS VEGAS -- ZF Friedrichshafen thought the next generation of transmissions for plug-in hybrid cars it announced it would make last year, which are due to debut in the early 2020s, would be the last for the company, but that plan has changed.

“We will go for one more generation,” ZF CEO Wolf-Henning Scheider said, predicting that the next-generation transmissions would arrive around 2025.

“I believe in hybrids as a solution for the family car where you have both long distance and electric driving. We call it the EVplus or the ‘people’s hybrid’,” the chief executive said during a roundtable discussion with reporters at CES here last week.

Scheider said a plug-in hybrid with ZF’s EVplus technology would be capable of traveling 100 km (62 miles) in full-electric mode and then tap into the vehicle’s internal combustion engine when traveling longer distances.

ZF estimates that three-quarters of a person’s driving needs could be handled in full-electric mode by vehicles with 100 km of battery-driven range. Currently, most plug-in hybrids offer a full-electric range of just 50 km.

A first concept for the EVplus transmission will debut later this year, a company spokesman said.

Proceeding the EVplus solution will be ZF’s successor to its eight-speed automatic transmission, which will be a plug-in hybrid transmission for longitudinal applications, typically rear-wheel-drive vehicles. This solution will be in series production by 2021 to 2022, ZF said. With fully integrated power electronics, ZF's next plug-in hybrid solution will have an output of up to 160 kilowatts (218 hp). Electric output from ZF's current plug-in hybrid solutions is up to 100 kilowatts (134 hp), depending on the application, the company said.

ZF’s faith in hybrid transmissions comes as demand for plug-in hybrids has been stung by the combination of new regulations and the removal of incentives for the models in Europe. Despite that, ZF estimates that the share of hybrid drives in production will increase tenfold by 2023 to 50 percent from 5 percent. That is one of the reasons it announced last December that it would invest a combined 800 million euros over four years at its plant in Saarbrücken, Germany, to make it the company’s lead location for transmission technology.

ZF currently produces eight-speed transmissions in Saarbrücken for plug-in hybrids built by the Audi, BMW and Land Rover brands while eight-speed dual-clutch gearboxes are made for Porsche’s and Bentley’s plug-in hybrids in Brandenburg, Germany.