Game-changers

ZF's 8HP gearbox is the industry benchmark and now the default choice for a dizzying array of cars. Stephen Dobie reflects on its evolution and ZF's shift to electrification

- Stephen Dobie

Heinz Ketchup. Google. The Adidas Predator football boot. Some products nail their brief with such H conviction that they transcend any notion of competitiveness in their respective fields. They become ubiquitous for a reason. Which brings us to the ZF 8HP, a very prosaic name for a gearbox that has found a home in the BMW 1 Series, the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and all manner of vehicles in between.

Now into its fourth generation and embracing electrification, ZF Friedrichshafen's eight-speed automatic gearbox made its debut in 2008 in the Mk5 BMW 7 Series, but its development process started 20 years ago, within an automotive landscape that looked very different. Manuals dominated the mainstream and any excitement about automatics concerned dual clutches, the BorgWarner-designed VAG DSG having just been launched to great acclaim in the Volkswagen Golf R32 and Audi TT 3.2.

Did ZF spy the rise of autos in its crystal ball when devising the 8HP?

"I wouldn't say it was accidental, but obviously we're happy that the tendency went in that direction," says Didier Manning, vice-president at the of electrified powertrains German firm. "We've had a strong heritage with BMW from the 1960s onwards as our systems-integration partner. This enabled us to have a robust architecture that we could use in a lot of different applications, and this is definitely something that helped us achieve success with the 8HP.

"The gearbox can go from 200-1000Nm [148738 lb-ft of torque] and you see no difference from the outside.

"With our fourth generation, we've bridged e-mobility from within the gearbox."