To explain, GEMA was a joint venture of the Chrysler Group, Mitsubishi Motors, and Hyundai Motor Company for the development of a line of shared four-cylinder gasoline engines. In 2009, Chrysler bought out the shares of Mitsubishi and Hyundai and continued GEMA on its own. And here's where Hyundai comes into the picture. Citing unnamed sources, Car&Driver is reporting that the 2013 Dodge Dart's Tigershark engines are fitted with a Hyundai-supplied 6-speed automatic transmission.
Speculation has it that Chrysler wanted a quick solution to replace the GEMA engine's obsolete four-speed automatic with a modern transmission so it came to an agreement with Hyundai that uses a six-speed auto on its 2.0-liter Turbo and 2.4-liter naturally aspirated Theta engines, both of which evolved from the GEMA program.
The magazine says that Chrysler won't confirm the agreement for the supply of the 6-speed auto while Hyundai hasn't offered any specifics on which transmission it will sell to the Detroit company – this also leads us to believe that C&D's sources may have come from within or a company related to Hyundai.
C&D also wrote that the same sources say Chrysler is having some difficulties with the final calibrations of the Hyundai gearbox.
We still don't know if Hyundai's gearbox was used on the model that Dodge says achieved an unadjusted combined rating of 40 mpg (which is not the same as the EPA ratings) and which gave Fiat the right to acquire an additional 5% stake in Chrysler.
But even so, since we're lacking any official information, the alleged calibration problems with the transmission may not have affected the car's economy.
Chrysler has confirmed that it is already working on a new 9-speed automatic transmission currently being developed by the ZF Group that will be added to the Dart's range in 2013.
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