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Chrysler expecting up to 200,000 9-speed transmissions for 3 models this year

Striving for improved fuel economy, we already knew that Chrysler will begin using a nine-speed automatic transmission in some of its new products this year, but what we haven't known is that volume at which this gearbox will be used. According to Bloomberg, Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has been quoted as saying that the automaker expects to sell close to 200,000 units equipped with this new transmission in 2013. Those gear-rich trannies will be spread out across three models, consisting of the redesigned Chrysler 200, the still-unnamed Jeep Liberty replacement and the Dodge Dart.
This transmission should play a pivotal role in making Chrysler vehicles more competitive in their respective segments. Just for comparison, one of the Dart's key competitors, the Toyota Corolla, still uses a four-speed automatic, and a previous report indicates that the next-generation 200 could get up to 38 miles per gallon on the highway, which is better than most non-hybrid midsize sedans on the market. Marchionne says that the new Jeep model is expected during the second quarter of this year, but there is no word as to when the new 200 or nine-speed Dart will debut, but clearly Dodge would like to have the transmission in its compact yesterday. As for that volume figure, it definitely doesn't seem out of reach since the Dart, Liberty and 200 combined for a total of more than 225,000 units in 2012.
How many more gears can we expect in future cars? Probably not many more, since the CEO of transmission-builder ZF, Stefan Sommer, previously stated that nine speeds was the "natural limit" for transmissions.

Chrysler 3.0L EcoDiesel V6: Autoblog Technology of the Year finalist

Offering a diesel engine in an American pickup is anything but new - Ford, General Motors and Chrysler all offer excellent and almost impossibly powerful oil-burning engines in their various fullsize trucks. What is new and novel about the 3.0L EcoDiesel, though, is its size, and the variety of vehicles that use it. It's the smallest engine, as far as displacement is concerned, currently offered in a large truck in the US, and, for 2014 and 2015, it is available in the Ram 1500 and the Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Though it may be small, it's got muscle. While 240 horsepower isn't particularly impressive these days, the engine's 420 pound-feet of torque more than makes up for that. The torque rating is even greater force than even the big 5.7-liter Hemi can muster. Chrysler's well-regarded eight-speed automatic transmission makes the most of all that bull-headed pulling power in both the Ram and Grand Cherokee. Chrysler claims the Ram EcoDiesel 1500 can tow as much as 9,200 pounds when properly equipped, which makes it "90-percent of the Hemi with a night and day difference in fuel economy."
Make no mistake; it's that promise of a sizable fuel economy improvement that many long-haul truckers will be most interested in. In the Ram 1500 that we tested for our Tech of the Year competition, the diesel engine costs $2,850 more than the gas-fed V8, and Ram estimates that EcoDiesel buyers will pay off their investment when compared to the Hemi engine in less than three years, which is considerably less time than the 4.5 or so years the average buyer will keep his or her fullsize pickup. The more you drive, the more you'll save, and the math proves equally as effective in the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Jeep in St. Louis hacked from Pittsburgh

One of America's most popular vehicles contains a security flaw that allows hackers to remotely commandeer it from anywhere on the planet. Cyber-security researchers Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller say they've accessed critical vehicle controls on a 2014 Jeep Cherokee that allowed them to remotely control critical vehicle functions like braking, transmission function, and steering. Automakers have downplayed the possibility a car could be remotely compromised, but the significance of the findings detailed Tuesday could cause them to reevaluate the threats posed to hundreds of thousands of vehicles already on the road. A key finding – the pair needed no physical access to the Jeep to pull off the attack. Valasek and Miller accessed the controls via a security hole in the Sprint cellular connection to Chrysler's UConnect infotainment system. In the course of their research, Valasek sat in his Pittsburgh home and remotely manipulated Miller's Jeep as he drove along a highway outside St. Louis. If you know a car's IP address, they say, a hacker could control it from anywhere. "We didn't add anything, didn't touch it," Valasek told Autoblog. "A customer could drive one of these things off a lot, and they'd have no clue it had these open attack surfaces." Remotely, he disabled brakes, turned the radio volume up, engaged windshield wipers and tampered with the transmission. Further, they could conduct surveillance on the Jeep, measuring its speed and tracking its whereabouts. They conducted the experiments over multiple breaches. They made their findings public on the same day the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal agency in charge of vehicle safety, released its latest report on the readiness of government and automakers to fend off these sorts of cyber attacks. Later today, two US Senators are expected to introduce legislation that would help consumers better understand the potential risks of car hacking. In the early stages of their research, Valasek and Miller found a security flaw in the car's wi-fi that allowed them to remotely manipulate controls from a range of about three feet. But in recent months, they found another vulnerability in the Sprint cellular connection in the UConnect system. That was a key breakthrough. "Lo and behold, we found we could communicate with this thing using cellular, and then more research, and 'Holy cow,' we're using the Sprint network to communicate with these vehicles," Valasek said.