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Chrysler to build ZF's eight-speed transmission in Indiana

The Chrysler Group plans to spend $300 million to build a new eight-speed automatic transmission licensed from ZF Group, a transmission maker headquartered in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The investment will pay for installation of special tooling and equipment at Chrysler's Transmission Plant 1 and Kokomo Casting Plant in Indiana and help retain 1,200 jobs there, Chrysler said Wednesday. Production will start in 2013.

Center stack is new high-stakes battleground; showdown with safety regulators looms

For auto suppliers and gadget companies eager to get a piece of the auto industry, the hottest chunk of vehicle real estate now is the center stack. That corridor of interior space, running from the driver's right hip up through the center of the cockpit to the bottom of the windshield, has become a California gold rush of opportunity. But it is less so for traditional suppliers of molded plastics, cables, levers, buttons and radios.

Cadillac teases Detroit 2013 concept at Pebble Beach

Cadillac teased a new concept car at the weekend at Pebble Beach to be unveiled in the steel at an unnamed American auto show early next year. We'll see you on the GM stand in Detroit then. During a press event Cadillac's Global Design Director Clay Dean said it was time for the brand to "reflect back not for nostalgia, but what made us great at the time." There were no further details about what we can expect from the concept but from what we can see from these renders is what appears to be a further move away from the geometry of the Art and Science form language towards a more sculptural surface treatment intersected by sharp, precise creases.