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MOTORINDIA
l
February 2012
as all engines in the region of 230
hp go with a 9-speed gearbox. The
company has also been involved in
a joint venture called ZF-Kama with
Kamaz Vectra in Russia in which
the latter has transferred all respon-
sibilities related to transmissions to
the joint venture. As a result, ZF is
a 100 per cent supplier to Kamaz
Vectra to which it started supplying
in India also. The company will also
be supplying transmissions to Mahi-
ndra Navistar and VECV tippers.
ZF is betting big on the Ecolite
range in India which offers a new
generation flexible 6-speed plat-
form. The fundamental transmis-
sion will be a basic manual one to
which a servo shift could be added
when necessary while it could also
be upgraded to automatic manual
transmission (AMT) using
an add-on package.
In the bus segment, ZF
transmissions are fitted
on Volvo and Ashok
Leyland buses in In-
dia. The new buses
launched by AMW
and MAN would
also have ZF as a
transmission sup-
plier. The com-
pany has a very
successful product,
the Ecomat, which is
a fully automatic transmis-
sion. Though most Indian
customers still bother more
about the initial investment,
once life-cycle cost gets its due
importance, the company feels this
product would definitely prove to be
superior and generate better profits.
The company is also looking at
AMTs which can support OEMs
with lower acquisition cost on the
one side and on the other, the end
user gets the benefit of higher fuel
economy against a fully-automatic
transmission.
Mr. Bhalla said: “We are study-
ing the bus market to deliver value
to customers, rather than being just
another player. Initial market seed-
ing is in process, next up is locali-
sation in India. As for AMTs, trials
are going on, and we must wait and
watch.”
Expressing his views on AMTs,
Mr. Munot said: “The market was
not able to get an AMT because the
engines did not have the required
technical or electronic capabili-
ties – CAN (Controller Area Net-
work) systems – to allow engine
and transmission communication.
Now that engines are upgraded, it
becomes easier for us to operate.
AMT is a bridge technology to auto-
matic transmission. Though people
are currently used to manual trans-
mission, the short-term solution is
AMT, while the long term is with
automatic transmission.”
ZF is working with several OEMs
to finetune, prototype and test prod-
ucts that would subsequently be en-
gineered in India with specific de-
sign using its capabilities in R&D.
The level of indigenisation in prod-
ucts currently manufactured jointly
by the company and its vendors is
close to 40 per cent and is set to
reach 75 per cent by the end of the
next year, thanks to greater localisa-
tion efforts being made.
ZF has sizeable in-
vestment plans in In-
dia for 2012, and the
investment
outlay
would be final-
ised soon. It is
preparing for
production of
shock absorbers
and suspensions.
Based on the grow-
ing investments being made in
India over the years, the company
is further confident of expanding its
local market.
w
auto expo 2012
“AMT is a bridge technol-
ogy to automatic transmis-
sion.”
– Mr. Piyush Munot
ZF Ecomat transmission