A full decade of ZF-AS Tronic
The most successful automatic transmission system for commercial vehicles is celebrating a milestone anniversary: For ten years, the ZF-AS Tronic has been relieving drivers from clutch and shift work, thereby ensuring comfort, safety, and economic efficiency, mainly in trucks and other commercial vehicle applications. Thus, ZF's AS Tronic is the international benchmark for automatic transmission solutions for heavy and mid-size trucks."Today, it is impossible to imagine freight transport with heavy trucks without automatic transmission systems! The development of the ZF-AS Tronic was a milestone for the driveline technology of this vehicle class", says Rolf Lutz, Senior Vice President Truck Driveline Technology of ZF Friedrichshafen AG. In June 1997, ZF, in cooperation with Iveco, developed the first automated commercial vehicle transmission ever. By now, more than 230,000 vehicles worldwide are equipped with the constantly advanced AS Tronic - apart from development partner Iveco, also other major international truck manufacturers, among them MAN and DAF, put their trust in the automatic transmission system by ZF.
Reason for this triumph is primarily the economic efficiency which the transmission system offers when applied in fleet use: Due to the fact that the AS Tronic always keeps the engine within the optimal speed range, the power is transmitted to the drive axles in a highly efficient manner, leading to significant fuel savings. Fuel-demanding faulty operation is excluded by the electronics; thus, even less experienced truckers can safely and efficiently drive with the automatically operated vehicle. Gear engagement without clutch engagement jolts and release shocks preserve both freight and driveline. This not only increases comfort but also minimizes wear. Soon after introducing the AS Tronic in trucks, these benefits also showed a convincing effect in other commercial vehicle segments: In addition to their application in heavy, mid-size, and light trucks, today approximately 12,000 AS Tronic transmissions are also used in coaches and another 3,000 in mobile cranes. Moreover, ZF-AS Rail, a driveline solution based on the AS Tronic, is available for rail vehicles. This solution is more efficient and cost-effective than hydrodynamic transmissions which are often used in this sector.
Since 2005, ZF has been offering an entire AS Tronic transmission family in volume production, making the advantages of automatic shifting available also to mid-size and light delivery vehicles. With the AS Tronic mid and the AS Tronic lite, ZF has developed commercial vehicle transmissions which cover a torque range of 600 to 2,700 Nm for light and mid-size trucks. ZF's automatic transmission system is also available as TC Tronic, which is equipped with a torque converter. It is suitable for especially heavy applications above the torque limit mentioned before, e.g. crane or construction site vehicles. ZF offers an automatic transmission system for vans as well, the eTronic, which means that the advantages of automatic shifting with ZF transmissions is available for all commercial vehicle classes.
The commercial vehicle driveline featuring the ZF-AS Tronic is also well-prepared for the future trend of hybridization: For example, one ZF concept combines the AS Tronic lite with a hybrid module, which, in addition to further fuel savings, offers additional benefits to the drivers thanks to a crawling function and sensitive maneuvering, particularly in fuel-consuming stop-and-go traffic.
