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MOTORINDIA
l
June 2012
major transport operators of Turkey,
namely, IETT in Istanbul, EGO in
Ankara, and Eshot in Izmir. Thus,
the most heavily populated cities of
Turkey have decided in favour of ZF
technology.
Dr. Michael Störk, Director, Head
of Sales & Application 2, Commer-
cial Vehicle Technology Business
Unit, Bus Driveline Technology,
said: “We have a lot of new tenders
in Istanbul, Ankara and other Turk-
ish cities for our new automatic
transmission, the ZF Ecolife. The
buses which run in Istanbul’s BRT
system are all equipped with ZF
transmission.”
Over the years, ZF has been doing
well in India too. At present, ZF’s
9-speed truck transmissions are as-
sembled at its Pune facility and the
company is looking out for localis-
ing more products for the promising
Indian market.
Mr. Sigurd Rieg, Sales and Appli-
cation 2, Commercial Vehicle Tech-
nology Business Unit, Bus Driveline
Technology, said: “The Indian bus
market is a big potential for us, with
such a huge population to be trans-
ported. We have a lot of experience
in product support and can provide
very good professional service, es-
pecially for buses. Our activities in
Pune have the potential to go step-
by-step to localise our products, but
we need higher volumes to localise.
If the market booms, then we could
even think of a second plant.”
In India, the Volvo 8400 city-
buses are fitted with ZF Ecomat,
an automatic transmission, while
the intercity coaches come with ZF
manual transmissions which are im-
ported from Brazil. There are more
than 1,500 Volvo buses running
with ZF Ecomat which are gradually
being shifted to the more advanced
ZF Ecolife.
ZF is also in talks with Tata Mo-
tors to get its 6-speed manual trans-
mission approved on the company’s
new luxury coach Divo. The compa-
ny is also waiting for the approval of
an automated manual transmission
(AMT) on one vehicle and is keen
on replicating the success with au-
tomatic transmissions for city buses.
The other major Indian bus-maker,
Ashok Leyland, has a ZF licence.
ZF is vigorously working with
STUs in the country, including
BEST, DTC, BMTC, KSRTC and
APSRTC. “The STUs are looking
for relief for drivers and comfort
for passengers. Currently, the stand-
ard is manual transmission, but the
next logical step would be AMTs.
The ZF AS Tronic Lite is an AMT
component zone