Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors are planning to make high mileage and high performance, which are major tasks for future cars, come true by applying their next-generation high-speed transmission to their cars.
According to industries on the 18th, Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors finished developing ‘8-speed DCT (Double Clutch Transmission)’ and are currently working on final stage of quality inspection such as durability test. It is likely that 8-speed DCT will be used by ‘i30 N’, which is Hyundai Motor Company’s first model for its high-performance N Brand. i30 N that will be released in European market during second half of this year will first use 6-speed manual transmission and i30 Ns that will be produced after second half of 2018 will be equipped with 8-speed DCT.
Characteristic of DCT, which is the lower grade of automatic manual-transmission, is its ability to implement quick change of speed and excellent mileage at the same time. DCT uses two clutches and changes speed based on a principle of manual transmission that does not lose much power. DCT’s reaction time to change of speed is faster than current automatic transmissions and its mileage is also at least 10% higher than current automatic transmissions. Market research company called IHS is estimating that percentage of cars equipped with DCT from global automotive manufacturers will increase from 6.5% in 2015 to 9.6% in 2021.
Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors have been replacing current automatic transmission with their own DCT since 2015. Currently they are selling more than 20 of their cars such as Veloster, i30 Diesel, and Sonata Turbo with 7-speed DCT rather than automatic transmission. Reason why they are newly introducing 8-speed DCT is because it is difficult to support performance of variety of high-performance cars that they are going to introduce in the future with 7-speed DCT.
DCT is divided into dry DCT and wet DCT depending on use of oil. Although current 7-speed DCT, which is based on dry method, has better efficiency in mileage and simpler structure than DCT based on wet method, it is not suitable for high-performance cars due to an existence of permissible torque value.
8-speed DCT developed by Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors is based on wet method. Wet method, which uses oil, can respond better to higher power due to high cooling efficiency and has excellent durability. Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors are planning to mass-produce 8-speed DCTs and are going to apply them sequentially to variety of high-performance large-sized models that will be released in the future.
They are also replacing current 6-speed automatic transmissions with 8-speed automatic transmissions according to release dates of their new cars. Kia Motors is going to start selling ‘2018 Sorrento’ that is equipped with new 8-speed automatic transmission on the 20th. New Sorrento, which is a model that has improved commercial value, focuses on enhancing efficiency in mileage through improvement of powertrain.
8-speed transmission that will be used by new Sorrento has identical specifications as the transmission that is used by Hyundai Motor Company’s current Maxcruz and it is heard that it is about 5% and 2 to 5% better mileage and acceleration force than current 6-speed transmissions. Its another characteristic is that it provides smoother change of speed through higher gears. Out of SUV diesel models by Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors, Sorrento is the third model behind Mohave and Maxcruz to have 8-speed transmission.
Although Kia Motors finished developing technologies for new Sorrento Diesel Hybrid, which is the first car by Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors to be considered of its release, was ultimately excluded as one of the models that will be released as 2018 model because Kia Motors thought consumers will try to stay away from it due to increase in initial purchase cost. Its price will go up by $5,334 to $6,223 (6 million KRW and 7 million KRW) due to additional parts such as a battery and a motor. It is likely that price of new Sorrento will go up slightly due to 8-speed transmission and change in design.
“Wet DCT and 8-speed automatic transmission are evaluated as the highest level of transmissions out of transmissions that are used by current cars.” said a representative for an industry. “Fact that Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors developed their own wet DCT and 8-speed automatic transmission indicates that their technical skills in transmission are at the highest out of global automotive manufacturers.”
Staff Reporter Jung, Chiyeon | chiyeon@etnews.com