Announced a long time ago, the innovative electrified automatic transmission developed by the PSA group (Citroën-DS-Peugeot) with the equipment manufacturer Punch Powertrain is still long overdue. But the Metz factory is preparing to be able to produce it in series from the beginning of next year.
If mild hybridization (MHEV) is more and more widespread, it is still absent from all the brands belonging to the former PSA group: Peugeot, Citroën, DS and Opel. These four manufacturers only offer mains rechargeable models (PHEV), a much more expensive solution reserved for the upper segments. For their part, city cars or urban SUVs have preferred to bet on 100% electric, also quite expensive and not necessarily suitable for all buyers. To compensate for this shortcoming, However, the quartet will not be content to add an alternator-starter and a 48 V battery in a hurry. He will also take the opportunity to offer his first double-clutch automatic transmission, as part of a joint venture created with the equipment manufacturer Punch Powertrain. A choice also dictated by the refusal of the Japanese equipment manufacturer Aisin to allow PSA to produce the current e-EAT8 under license, as is the case for the EAT6.
A rather complicated development
This project, The argus We’ve been talking about it since 2018. The development of this “e-DCT” has indeed proven to be complicated. With its two axle ratios and its single shaft which does not allow a speed to be pre-selected, its operation is totally different from that of the DSG, DKG or other PDKs. But the Metz factory evokes a “scaling up of processes and teams” in charge of manufacturing and confirms that it “will produce in early 2023” this electrified transmission. An ambitious quantified objective has even already been set: to reach a capacity of 600,000 units per year by the end of 2024. It must be said that this box will not only be used for the future 1.2 PureTech with light hybridization, which will make its debut on the occasion of the restyling of the 208, the 508 or the Rifter in 2023. Secondly, it will also replace the “classic” eight-speed automatic transmission supplied by the Japanese Aisin in the plug-in hybrid models of the group. It will then be associated with a new generation of the 1.6 PureTech engine in 2024.
Short runs possible in electric
Deprived of a high-voltage battery, the MHEV versions will still be able to drive without using heat at very low speeds, over short distances. A possibility that the Jeep Renegade, Fiat Tipo and 500X or even Alfa Romeo Tonale have also recently offered, this time adding an electric motor in a conventional dual-clutch gearbox of Getrag origin. These two branches of the Stellantis group, now united, will thus achieve a fairly close result on paper with totally different technical solutions and partners. No question of scrapping such advanced projects in the name of economies of scale! It remains to be seen if the Punch-PSA box will be able to prove convincing behind the wheel, if it will effectively reduce consumption… and if it can be marketed at a really competitive price in the face of more advanced hybridizations (HEV) such as those of Toyota, Honda or the great rival Renault-Nissan. But this is not guaranteed, because the manufacturing price of this transmission has been pointed out for a long time internally. So much so that the idea of using Renault’s E-Tech system once circulated at PSA. But the big boss, Carlos Tavares, quickly put his veto.
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