Yes that is correct an 8 speed automatic, I believe that will be used for the diesel engines that are coming around 2008 - 2009. Just about everything will be available with a diesel, ie minivans, the Calibur (Neon replacement in January), Grand Cherokee, Liberty in NY and CA, maybe the Stratus, LX cars and the Pacifica (new face lift coming in 2006 also). The best way to explain it....Basically the planetary gearset consists of a sun gear, 3 - 6 planetary gears and an annulus gear. The pitch of the teeth determines the gear ratio. Its laid out like this. The plent gears are held inside a metal cage and can rotate freely on their own axis. The sun gear sits in the center of the planet gears (they rotate around the outside of the sun gear) and the annulus gear rotates around the outside of the sun gear. Now depending on which of the 3 components is held or driven will give up either reverse, overdrive or underdrive. If 2 components are driven the output will be direct drive (aka usually this is 3rd gear). If the annulus gear is held and the sun geaer is driven you have reverse. If the planetary gear is driven you will have overdrive and if the sun is driven you will have underdrive. If that doesn't confuse you I can dredge up more stuff!
