Kia's 6-Speed Automatic Tranny, the World's Most Compact

Though regarded by many German-lovin' fanatics as some poor Asian people who can barely put together a car, let alone develop technologies, Kia have managed to come up with their very own 6-speed automatic transmission.

The reason why we're bringing this up is that, apparently, the Koreans did this all by themselves, without any help from companies specialized in transmissions, such as ZF Friedrichshafen AG or Borg-Warner. And that's no small thing, because of all the German manufacturers, Mercedes-Benz is the only one developing and manufacturing their own automatic transmissions. The rest are co-developing and purchasing their units from third-party companies, such as the ones mentioned above.

According to an interview on Kia Buzz with Senior Research Engineer Seong-hoon Park, the company secured no less than 300 patents during the development of their first 6-speed automatic transmission.

If we are to fully believe Seong-hoon Park, “compared to the 5-speed, the 6-speed automatic transmission applied to the new Sorento in Korea, for example, has 62 fewer parts, is 41mm shorter in length and 12kg lighter in weight”.

According to Kia's figures, this makes it the most compact 6-speed transmission currently available. Once again, no small feat.

Apart from size, the new 6-speed tranny yields a 10% improvement in fuel economy, 14% faster zero to 100km/h acceleration time (10.0 sec.) and 24% quicker 60km/h to 100km/h passing performance (5.0 sec.). These figures were obtained on a Sorento diesel R-2.2 2WD.

In terms of availability, apart from the Mohave (Borrego), the 6-speed automatic transmission will also be included on Opirus (Amanti) and Grand Carnival (Sedona) models.