Quote:
Originally Posted by rmay635703
Offering a manual costs the manufacturer around 10 million in government testing.
Remove the testing and it costs absolutely nothing to offer an already designed manual from another market
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1. The regulatory and testing costs aren't trivial. As you said they are millions and that cost is spread over a small number of vehicles
2. There are LOTS of other cost associated with adding a transmission
Logistics / Manufacturing / Sales- Shipping racks have to hold more than 1 transmission. This adds engineering complexity and cost
- You need clutch shipping racks.
- You need to spend engineering time to layout the station where the transmission is bolted to the engine
- You need a new DC tool on a torque arm (and maybe a crane system to hold the tool)
- You have to spend engineering hours to develop the assembly process and write work instructions
- You have to spend engineering hours to update the programming stations
- You have to spend engineering hours to update dynos
- You have to fly engineers and technicians from every plant to corporate to be trained on how the parts are assembled
- You have to train line operators on how the parts are assembled
- You have to train someone at every dealership on how to service and repair the transmission
- You have to stock the parts the distribution center and service parts in dealerships
- You have to spend money to program the ordering system to add the option and decided on compatibility codes.
Engineering / Part costs:
This is the big one. I've been dealing with this for 6 months on a new vehicle that will go on sale in 2021. We are laying out the components on the firewall. We have new ECU's and associated wiring and have to find a place for them. No matter how we arrange the components we run into the space allocated for the manual clutch and reservoir. To solve this problem and bridge over the space for the clutch requires an extra bracket. This bracket adds material and labor cost to every automatic transmission model in order to allow for an option that sells at less than 5%.