Photo: Ford
The automatic in the Edge ST has a pretty weird background. To make a long story short, Ford and General Motors agreed to develop a couple of transmissions, one for longitudinal and the other for transverse applications. This collaboration gave us the 10-speed automatic in the F-150 and Silverado as well as the Hydra-Matic 9Txx series that features eight instead of nine ratios in the case of the four-cylinder Edge.
Why did the Blue Oval decide to drop a gear, you ask? As it happens, the 9Txx didn’t provide enough of an improvement in terms of fuel economy to justify the added cost and weight of an extra ratio. Adding insult to injury, the eight-speeder in the Edge ST and Lincoln Nautilus with the V6 mill is adapted from an older six-speed transmission for high-torque applications.
As you would expect from an old design with additional complexity on the top, Ford has received some criticism for it. The Blue Oval intended to fix the laggy performance with a software update, but instead of that, the Dearborn-based automaker has decided to switch to seven speeds.
Ford Authority reports that we’re dealing with the same transmission as before, physically speaking, but with different programming for eliminating the second gear. “We’ve kept the performance while improving shift action based on customer feedback by deleting the shift from second to third,” said Kelly Wysocki, the SUV communications manager at Ford North America.
This comes across as, well, surprising if you remember why the Blue Oval said no to the Hydra-Matic 9Txx in the first place. Even more surprising is how the Ford Motor Company left the oily bits of the second ratio inside the eight-/seven-speed tranny although they serve no purpose whatsoever.
Now in production at the Oakville assembly plant, the Edge ST for the 2021 model year develops 335 horsepower at 5,000 rpm and 380 pound-feet (515 Nm) of torque at 3,000 rpm from the 2.7-liter EcoBoost twin-turbo V6.
As you would expect from an old design with additional complexity on the top, Ford has received some criticism for it. The Blue Oval intended to fix the laggy performance with a software update, but instead of that, the Dearborn-based automaker has decided to switch to seven speeds.
Ford Authority reports that we’re dealing with the same transmission as before, physically speaking, but with different programming for eliminating the second gear. “We’ve kept the performance while improving shift action based on customer feedback by deleting the shift from second to third,” said Kelly Wysocki, the SUV communications manager at Ford North America.
This comes across as, well, surprising if you remember why the Blue Oval said no to the Hydra-Matic 9Txx in the first place. Even more surprising is how the Ford Motor Company left the oily bits of the second ratio inside the eight-/seven-speed tranny although they serve no purpose whatsoever.
Now in production at the Oakville assembly plant, the Edge ST for the 2021 model year develops 335 horsepower at 5,000 rpm and 380 pound-feet (515 Nm) of torque at 3,000 rpm from the 2.7-liter EcoBoost twin-turbo V6.
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