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

NEW CARS

Next-Gen Citroën C4 Promises Radical Design and a Rebellion Against Boring Hatchbacks

Citroën has never been very good at blending in, and it doesn’t plan to start now. As the current C4 edges into retirement—six years old and counting, making it the oldest car in the brand’s lineup—Citroën is preparing a replacement that, in the words of its own design chief, “has to look very different.” Translation: the next C4 is about to get strange in a very French way.

That’s refreshing news in a C-segment world dominated by safe, conservative hatchbacks that look like they were designed by a committee armed with spreadsheets. Citroën, on the other hand, is aiming for something more radical. Design boss Pierre Leclercq says the fourth-generation C4 will be “highly bespoke,” deliberately separating itself from everything else in the brand’s lineup—which, outside of the tiny Ami, has quietly turned into a sea of crossovers.

In other words, the next C4 won’t just be a shrunk C5 or a stretched C3. It won’t adopt the chunky, box-on-wheels vibe of Citroën’s newer crossovers either. It will stay a hatchback—and a defiant one at that.

Cheap Bones, Expensive Attitude

Under the skin, the next C4 could take a very different path from its Stellantis cousins. The current model rides on the CMP platform, shared with cars like the Peugeot 208 and Opel Corsa. But Citroën is reportedly considering switching to the more cost-focused “Smart Car” architecture that underpins the new C3 and C3 Aircross.

That might sound like a downgrade, but Citroën sees it as an opportunity: lower production costs mean a lower sticker price, which frees the brand to spend its capital on what it really cares about—style and character.

That’s classic Citroën. Historically, this is the company that gave us hydropneumatic suspensions, single-spoke steering wheels, and dashboard layouts that looked like sci-fi props. Even now, Leclercq insists experimentation should be central to the brand’s role within Stellantis.

“Citroën has always been a bit experimental, and should be the experimental brand of the group,” he said—and he means it.

Bold Enough to Be Polarizing

Citroën CEO Xavier Chardon is just as blunt. The brand, he says, doesn’t want to be “generic” like Volkswagen or Toyota. It wants to take risks—even if that means not everyone will love the result.

“I’m not afraid if people hate our design,” he said. “But I don’t want anybody to think our design is mainstream.”

That’s a gutsy thing to say in a market where customer clinics and focus groups often sand off every sharp edge. But it’s also exactly the kind of attitude that could make the C4 interesting again. The outgoing model tried to straddle the line between hatchback and crossover, which left it a bit confused. The new one, by contrast, sounds like it will pick a lane—and then swerve creatively within it.

A Hatchback with a Point of View

What we shouldn’t expect is a cookie-cutter shape. Leclercq has already ruled out a boxy, two-volume crossover profile. The next C4 will remain a hatchback, but one driven by “new concepts” rather than a simple replacement brief.

That suggests we might get something genuinely different in a segment that desperately needs it. While rivals fight over who has the sharpest LED headlights or the most aggressive fake vents, Citroën is trying to answer a more interesting question: what if a compact hatchback didn’t have to look like everyone else’s idea of a compact hatchback?

If Citroën pulls this off—combining low prices with bold design—it could give the C-segment something it hasn’t had in years: personality. And honestly, in a world of painfully sensible cars, a little weird might be exactly what we’re missing.

Source: Autocar

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