GM and Allison Transmission Are Parting Ways After This Year

General Motors trucks have worn Allison Transmission branding for decades, but that will stop after Dec. 31, 2025. The two parties were unable to reach an agreement to extend their longstanding licensing deal into next year and beyond. In turn, the familiar badge is going away, but all of the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra 2500-and-up trucks will continue using the same 10-speed automatics as before.

That’s because GM already builds those transmissions, and they’ve simply worn the Allison name up to now. It was strictly a branding deal that kept the Allison moniker around after GM went with its own 10-speed design in 2018. That design was still checked and validated by Allison, but it didn’t originate from the dedicated transmission company.

TFL Truck shared a letter from GM to its dealers instructing them on next steps. It reads, “Following expiration of the License Agreement, GM and its authorized dealers are permitted a single 180-day period, from January 1, 2026 through June 29, 2026, to market, advertise, and sell their remaining inventory of products bearing the licensed Allison marks, provided all such uses remain compliant with the terms of the License Agreement.” After that date, dealers must “pull down all digital and website references, remove point of sale materials, and discontinue the publishing of any advertising materials that use or reference Allison marks.”

Not only that, but any new truck inventory still wearing Allison branding will be retrofitted with a non-Allison badge by June 29 of next year. This will be no small project, then.

When reached for comment by The Drive, a Chevrolet spokesperson provided the following statement:

“We routinely refresh our products, including badging and brand collaborations. The transmission itself and the truck’s performance are not changing—it’s the same 10-speed automatic we’ve offered in current and previous model years.”

GM’s relationship with Allison Transmission dates back to the middle of the 20th century, though Chevy and GMC pickups first began using Allisons in 2001, paired with the LB7 Duramax diesel engine. That went on until 2018, meaning trucks with Duramax engine codes LB7, LBZ, LLY, LMM, and LML were shipped from the factory with Allison-designed and Allison-built units. Model-year 2018 and later trucks with the L5P Gen 1 and Gen 2 Duramax engines have exclusively run the GM 10 speeds with Allison branding.

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