ZF announced plans for a $500M investment to make its Gray Court, South Carolina plant the company’s first North American flex manufacturing facility. ZF says this facility will be able to produce components for traditional ICE and e-mobility technologies, for both commercial and passenger vehicle needs. Additionally, ZF says another $200M will be used to ramp up U.S.-based manufacturing of PowerLine commercial vehicle transmissions.
400 new jobs will also be created at the Gray Court facility, according to ZF, as it prepares for 8HP Gen4 PHEV transmission production, slated to start in 2025.
ZF announced that the first PowerLine eight-speed automatic transmissions rolled off the Gray Court production line in late 2023. As part of a $200 million investment initially announced in 2021, ZF says it is now ramping up production to 200,000 transmissions per year by 2025.
The PowerLine transmission is designed for Class 5 to Class 8 trucks, and ZF claims that it pairs commercial vehicle performance with passenger car-type shifts, helping acceleration and increasing fuel efficiency savings up to 10%.
