Book excerpt: This book gives a full account of the development process for automotive transmissions. Main topics: - Overview of the traffic – vehicle – transmission system - Mediating the power flow in vehicles - Selecting the ratios - Vehicle transmission systems - basic design principles - Typical designs of vehicle transmissions - Layout and design of important components, e.g. gearshifting mechanisms, moving-off elements, pumps, retarders - Transmission control units - Product development process, Manufacturing technology of vehicle transmissions, Reliability and testing The book covers manual, automated manual and automatic transmissions as well as continuously variable transmissions and hybrid drives for passenger cars and commercial vehicles. Furthermore, final drives, power take-offs and transfer gearboxes for 4-WD-vehicles are considered. Since the release of the first edition in 1999 there have been a lot of changes in the field of vehicles and transmissions. About 40% of the second edition’s content is new or revised with new data.