Category Archives: News

News

BMW and ZF Bet Big on the Automatic: Why the 8-Speed Isn’t Going Anywhere

For years, the industry has been loudly preparing for a future without gears. EVs don’t need them, after all, and even hybrids are often pitched as smoother, simpler, and more software-driven. But BMW and ZF Friedrichshafen just dropped a very loud mechanical mic on that narrative.

The two companies have signed a multi-billion-euro contract that locks BMW into ZF’s 8HP eight-speed automatic transmission until the end of the 2030s—and not just as a legacy carryover. This deal is about evolving the automatic gearbox into something that works just as well in electrified cars as it does in traditional gasoline-powered ones.

In other words, the automatic isn’t dying. It’s getting smarter.

BMW’s Quietly Radical Decision

While some automakers are sprinting toward fully electric lineups, BMW continues to play a long game. The company has been clear that internal-combustion engines, mild hybrids, and plug-in hybrids will remain part of its portfolio well into the next decade. That requires a transmission that can do more than just shuffle ratios—it has to integrate seamlessly with electric motors, regenerative braking systems, and increasingly strict emissions rules.

Enter ZF’s 8HP.

This gearbox is already one of the industry’s most widespread units, used by everyone from BMW and Audi to Jeep and Rolls-Royce. But the next generation will be engineered specifically for the awkward middle age of the car industry—the phase where gasoline engines and electric motors have to coexist under the same hood.

Three Big Engineering Goals

ZF and BMW are steering the 8HP’s future along three main paths.

First, efficiency and emissions. The new versions will reduce internal friction, improve thermal management, and better coordinate with hybrid systems to squeeze out every possible gram of CO₂.

Second, performance across hybrid layouts. Whether it’s a 48-volt mild hybrid, a full plug-in system, or a traditional engine, the 8HP will be designed to handle electric torque fills, engine restarts, and blended propulsion without sacrificing BMW’s trademark throttle response.

And third, future-proofing. Regulations will keep tightening, and customer demand will keep shifting. ZF is effectively being paid to make sure this transmission platform doesn’t become obsolete halfway through the 2030s.

Why This Matters to Drivers

For BMW buyers, this is quietly excellent news.

The ZF 8HP is already one of the best automatics on the market—quick, smooth, durable, and far better than most dual-clutch gearboxes in daily driving. By continuing to refine it instead of replacing it with something unproven, BMW ensures that its future gas and hybrid cars will keep the crisp, confident shifting enthusiasts expect.

More importantly, it means BMW isn’t treating the next decade as a technological stopgap. Instead of rushing into half-baked solutions, the company is doubling down on a proven piece of hardware and evolving it for an electrified world.

In a time when many automakers are discarding everything mechanical in favor of software, BMW and ZF are making a different kind of bet: that great engineering still matters, even when electrons start sharing the workload.

And for drivers who still enjoy how a well-tuned automatic feels when you put your foot down, that’s very good news.

Source: BMW

News

Skoda Quietly Had Its Biggest Year in Six Years

While the global auto industry is still trying to figure out what comes after the post-pandemic whiplash, Skoda has gone ahead and delivered something refreshingly old-school: real, measurable growth. In 2025, the Czech automaker built 1,065,000 vehicles worldwide, a 15-percent jump over the previous year and its strongest production result since 2019. That’s not a rebound—it’s a comeback.

At the center of it all is Skoda’s historic home in Mladá Boleslav, which pumped out 605,600 vehicles while also assembling 329,000 battery systems for everything from Skoda’s own EVs to other Volkswagen Group products. It’s an operation that now straddles two automotive worlds at once, still building combustion-engine cars while simultaneously supplying the electrified future.

Skoda likes to point out—correctly—that Mladá Boleslav is the only Volkswagen Group factory that builds ICE vehicles and full EVs on the same production line. That’s not just a trivia fact; it’s a quiet flex. It means Skoda can pivot production faster than most brands as market demand swings between gasoline, hybrid, and electric powertrains.

And swing it has.

On the electric side, Skoda’s new Elroq compact electric crossover has taken off with 112,500 units built by January 2025, while the larger and already familiar Enyaq added another 77,000 vehicles. These numbers don’t make Skoda a Tesla-level EV powerhouse, but they firmly establish it as a serious European electric player—not a reluctant follower.

Meanwhile, Skoda hasn’t forgotten how to make old-fashioned mechanical hardware. Across its factories, the company produced more than 1.03 million transmissions and over 500,000 engines in 2025, underscoring that the ICE business is still very much alive inside the brand.

If Mladá Boleslav is the brain, Kvasiny is the muscle. The plant’s output jumped from 248,000 to 301,500 vehicles, a healthy 20-plus-percent increase that signals strong demand for Skoda’s higher-margin models, many of which are built there.

The growth story doesn’t stop in Europe. In India, production doubled to 73,800 vehicles, driven largely by the new Kylaq crossover, a model designed specifically for that rapidly growing market. This isn’t just export-and-hope strategy—Skoda is tailoring its products to local tastes, and it’s paying off.

Then there’s Vietnam, where Skoda has opened a new assembly plant with the Thanh Cong Group. So far, it’s modest—2,500 Slavia and Kushaq models built from Indian-supplied kits—but it’s a classic first step toward deeper localization in Southeast Asia, a region every global automaker is eyeing.

Skoda’s management isn’t hiding its satisfaction.
“For the first time in six years, we exceeded the limit of one million Skoda cars produced,” said Andreas Dick, the board member responsible for production and logistics. And for once, corporate pride actually lines up with the numbers.

What makes Skoda’s 2025 performance impressive isn’t just that it built more cars—it’s what kinds of cars it built. Gasoline, hybrid, and electric vehicles all rolling down the same lines. European volume, Indian growth, and Southeast Asian expansion. Old-school engines next to battery packs.

In an industry obsessed with choosing sides, Skoda is winning by refusing to. And right now, that flexibility looks like a very smart bet.

Source: Škoda

News

Why HVO100 Might Be the Cleanest Trick in the Diesel Playbook

By the time the auto industry finishes arguing about whether electrons or hydrogen will save the planet, the planet will have politely asked us to hurry up. That’s the inconvenient truth behind transport’s CO₂ problem: there are already about 250 million vehicles rolling around Europe, most of them burning fossil fuel, and they’re not going anywhere soon. So while the long-term shift to new powertrains grinds on, the fastest lever we can pull is a simpler one—change what goes into the tank.

That idea isn’t new. Bio-blended fuels have been around for years, but in the UK they’re still just that: blends. Regular petrol and diesel remain overwhelmingly fossil-based, with a splash of renewables mixed in for good behaviour. What is new is the growing push toward fuels that are 100 percent fossil-free and don’t require you to buy a new car—or even lift the bonnet.

They’re called “drop-in” fuels, and the name says it all. These are chemically engineered to behave just like the petrol or diesel they replace, meaning they won’t upset injectors, seals, or engine management systems. Increasingly, major carmakers are giving them the nod—sometimes across entire engine families, sometimes for vehicles built after a certain date.

Right now, the poster child of this movement is HVO100.

What Is HVO100, and Why Should You Care?

HVO stands for hydrogenated vegetable oil, though that undersells what it really is: a synthetic hydrocarbon diesel made from renewable raw materials. You’ll also hear it called renewable diesel, and unlike conventional biodiesel (the FAME-based stuff blended into UK pumps at around seven percent), HVO is chemically much closer to fossil diesel.

That matters. FAME biodiesel can cause compatibility issues in some engines, which is why it’s only used in small percentages. HVO100, by contrast, behaves so much like traditional diesel that, once approved by the manufacturer, it can be used neat—100 percent renewable, no blending required.

In other words, you fill up, drive away, and your car has no idea anything changed. The planet, however, very much does.

Carmakers Are Quietly Getting on Board

The momentum behind HVO100 is no longer theoretical. Stellantis last year fully validated its diesel engine range for HVO use, noting that many of its Euro 5 and Euro 6 engines were already compatible. BMW has gone even further, using HVO100 as a live demonstration of how quickly fleet emissions can be cut without waiting for everyone to switch to EVs.

The logic BMW put in front of fleet operators was refreshingly blunt: yes, electrification matters—but so does the fuel burned by the hundreds of millions of existing vehicles. Increase the proportion of renewable fuel in those tanks, and Europe’s CO₂ footprint drops almost immediately.

Since January, BMW has been putting its money where its filler cap is. Every diesel BMW built in Germany now leaves the factory with five to eight litres of HVO100 already in the tank, depending on model. The fuel comes from Neste MY, a Finnish producer whose HVO delivers up to a 90 percent reduction in CO₂ emissions on a well-to-wheel basis compared with fossil diesel.

“Well-to-wheel” is the key phrase there. It doesn’t just count what comes out of the tailpipe, but also the emissions created while sourcing, processing, refining, and transporting the fuel. In other words, it’s the full life-cycle carbon bill—and HVO100 still wipes the floor with conventional diesel.

BMW has approved all of its diesel passenger cars built from March 2020 onward for HVO100 use, with other manufacturers taking a similar date-based approach.

Not a Silver Bullet—but a Very Sharp One

Let’s be clear: HVO100 isn’t a magic wand that makes diesel guilt-free forever. But it is a remarkably effective stopgap—and maybe more than that. Unlike waiting for a full EV rollout, this is a solution that can be deployed right now, into the cars people already own, with almost no behavioural change.

No new charging infrastructure. No new engines. Just a cleaner liquid in the same old tank.

In a world obsessed with what’s coming next, HVO100 is a reminder that sometimes the fastest way forward is to fix what we already have. And for an industry desperate to cut carbon without hitting the brakes, that’s not just convenient—it might be essential.

Source: Autocar