An exclusive report from MOTORINDIA
ZF Friedrichshafen AG, a leading worldwide automotive supplier for driveline and chassis technology, presented its range of products at the Busworld Turkey exhibition held recently in Istanbul. ZF’s technology is highly popular in the Turkish bus market which is considered the most dynamic in Europe. Eleven bus manufacturers have production locations in the country and all of them are ZF customers.
For 2012, orders have already been placed for 900 buses by different manufacturers with the final destination Turkey. These are equipped with the fuel-saving EcoLife 6-speed automatic transmission, ZF axles and steering technology by ZF Steering Systems. The customers are the three 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, Commercial Vehicle Technology Business Unit, Bus Driveline Technology, said: “We have a lot of new tenders in Istanbul, Ankara and other Turkish 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 assembled at its Pune facility and the company is looking out for localising more products for the promising Indian market.
Mr. Sigurd Rieg, Sales and Application 2, Commercial Vehicle Technology Business Unit, Bus Driveline Technology, said: “The Indian bus market is a big potential for us, with such a huge population to be transported. We have a lot of experience in product support and can provide very good professional service, especially 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 imported 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 Motors to get its 6-speed manual transmission approved on the company’s new luxury coach Divo. The company is also waiting for the approval of an automated manual transmission (AMT) on one vehicle and is keen on replicating the success with automatic 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 standard is manual transmission, but the next logical step would be AMTs. The ZF AS Tronic Lite is an AMT which is developed for lower powered vehicles with low horse-power, like those in India and other emerging markets. The Indian market will develop soon, especially using AMTs to move towards automatics. Though we are not the cheapest in terms of cost, we look to sell through our performance and focus on life-cycle cost.”
One main advantage with ZF is that it has all the transmission technologies – automatics, AMTs and manual – in its portfolio, offering its customers the entire range to choose from. In addition, the company’s technical expertise enables it to recommend the type of transmission which would be most suitable for a particular application.
According to Dr. Störk, multi-speed automatics with primary retarders would be the best choice for BRTs. For feeder buses, the company suggests AMTs such as the ZF AS Tronic Lite to be a good alternative to manual or heavy AMTs, which on the other hand, would be the right choice for coaches.
About two decades ago, in South America, automatic transmissions were almost unheard of, but now the situation has changed with ZF being able to penetrate the market mainly due to product benefits. The company is confident that the same would be the case with India. However, for the change to happen, the standard of infrastructure and the performance of buses should improve in the country.
ZF automatic transmissions come with a primary retarder which offers better performance in low-speed city-bus applications. The company is also a pioneer in producing power-shift transmissions for passenger cars, which is being reproduced for buses, since buses are also involved with transporting passengers. In automatic transmissions, ZF is indeed a leader with a 52 per cent market-share in buses worldwide.