Capricio

So, I've kind of mentally committed to buying a new-new car for the first time in my life from a dealer with the coming of the 2016 sixth-gen camaro. What I'm having a hard time with is deciding whether or not the General intends for the 8L90 to be a stop-gap transmission to act as a placeholder for the coming 9-10 speed transmission they are co-developing with Ford. I'm sure both will be formidable and good performers, but I'd hate to buy a vehicle with a one-off tranny that was only produced for 3 or 4 years.

Everything I have read indicates that Ford will use this new tranny in everything from their pick-ups to the Mustang. GM, on the other hand, may just make FWD versions of it in their econoboxes or replace the 8L90 with it or just use it in trucks/SUVs. The speculation is all over the place.

Any thoughts on the prospects of the new 8L90 with the new 9-10 speed so close, 1-2 years behind, on the horizon? I probably won't buy the first model year of the new Camaro, regardless, but still wondering if this other transmission is worth waiting for.

mrvedit

The number of gears in the trans is becoming a marketing gimmick. A high powered engine in a relatively light vehicle (e.g. car) doesn't need that many gears for performance. They claim an improvement in gas mileage, but there seem to be diminishing returns past even 6 gears.
We have been critical of the 6L80E for having such widely spaced gears; I haven't seen a single case of anyone getting better performance out of a 6L80E than a 4L80E.

With the movement toward ever smaller engines, e.g. 3 cylinder in cars and 6 cylinder in trucks, an 8 or 10 speed trans makes sense.
Also, if the 8L90 shifts as fast as they claim (under 100ms) I would expect a very slight performance gain if the gear ratios are good.
All of these transmissions still use a torque converter, instead of a double-clutch, and therefore will generate too much heat for extended road course racing.

Here is an article about BMW finding few benefits and only problems/cost with excessive number of transmission speeds:
http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2...smissions.html

I suspect that GM will not change from a 8L80 to a 10 speed in the middle of a generation. Unlike trucks, cars are packaged too tightly for such major changes.

Therefore, if you like the new generation Camaro, go for it!
(Hopefully it will have better visibility than the current one.)

This is obviously just my opinion.

Capricio

Just some examples of what the media is saying:

http://www.autonews.com/article/2014...ighway-gm-says

http://gmauthority.com/blog/2013/04/...transmissions/

built408

iTrader: (10)

GM isn't going to drop that much money on developing an 8 speed transmission to only use it for 3 years.

How long was the 4L60e used? 22-23 years?

And the above is right. What are you going to do with a 4.56 first gear ratio?

Capricio

...kind of depends how tall they make the rear end ratio, I suppose.