OTHER TRANSMISSION NEWS
Page 10
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• ZF believes that by 2007 up to 70% of the light CV (sub-8.5t GVW) market in western Europe will be using automatic or automated transmissions, but before then it has more manual designs in the pipeline.
There will be further segmentation of the market with more designs tailored to a precise torque range, based on models such as the Ecofite (68850) and Ecosplit (168201 and 165231). At the heavier end of the market the Servoshift shift-assistance system will be adopted by many more manufacturers.
ZF also builds the ComfortShift system (pictured, right), as adopted by MAN, which will operate on low as well as high range for next year's models (see Driving Impressions, CM27 July-2 August and this week's drive to the Nurburgring, pages 28-29).
The Intarder integral hydrodynamic retarder is fitted to 35% of Ecosptit boxes, and ZF expects this proportion to rise with the introduction of Intarder 2 at Frankfurt. Braking capability goes up from 420kW to 500kW (about 670hp) and the idle efficiency will be improved by 40%, reducing the drag educed by the Intarder while it is inactive from about 2.5kW to 1.5kW.