Last week at the Electric Mobility Summit 2022 in New Delhi, a representative of the ZF Group pointed out that a three-speed transmission could be a good solution for tomorrow's electric vehicles. For the uninitiated, ZF is a company specialized in the production of automatic transmissions for the automotive, railway, marine and industrial sectors. In automotive circles, it is most commonly known as the supplier of the outstanding ZF eight-speed automatic transmission used in every front longitudinal engine vehicle; from the BMW 3 Series to the Audi A8. In electric cars, in general, there is a single-speed gearbox except for some small and rare cars, such as the Porsche Taycan, which benefit from a two-speed selector.
Ramanathan, of ZF, argues that the the use of a three-speed transmission could prove perfect in terms of driving efficiency; while first (lowest) gear could be for towing and difficult inclines, second for everyday driving, and final for high-speed driving. As anticipated, it would be an updated version of the gearbox designed by Audi/Porsche which allows excessive energy consumption to be limited at high speeds (or high RPMs). Is this a new solution from ZF? Yes, maybe.
When the first combustion engines arrived on the market, there were three-speed gearboxes which later became four, five... up to eight or even ten speeds. In short, the electric car sector could gradually take this path, leaving the single-speed gearbox on the cheaper and more accessible cars and integrating more refined solutions on the more premium ones. In any case, this is a great challenge for ZF since, in addition to the newly developed gearbox, it is interested in expanding its knowledge of autonomous driving with an investment of around 15 billion dollars over the next five years.