Review of the 6th International CTI Symposium Innovative Automotive Transmissions

Berlin/Sulzbach, December 2007. Cost pressure will increase in the coming years: more than 1,000 participants came to the 6th International CTI Symposium "Innovative Automotive Transmissions" in Berlin in the beginning of December to be informed that globalisation and the stricter emission regulations lead to increasingly stringent conditions of the international car development. The industry will only be able to comply with it by cooperations and optimised transmission technology. The future of different transmission concepts on the various geographic markets was also discussed. It became apparent that the dual-clutch transmission will become more import in both Europe and the USA, the continuously variable transmission on the Indian market. The experts, however, did not come to an agreement on the issue of fuel consumption reduction.

Cost pressure forces industry to cooperate

"We cannot imagine the extent of the cost pressure on the car industry at all yet," predicted Dr. Carsten Breitfeld, Manager Transmission Development at BMW. "The development already begins to show: Add the target figures and compare them to the market data - it won't work." The industry had to prepare for a massive crowding out.

The supplier industry confirmed this trend: "Competition on the car market has reached a global level," said Tobias Hagenmeyer, president of the transmission manufacturer Getrag Corporate Group. The transmission industry would also get to feel the effects since transmissions are the most investment intensive part of a vehicle. Hagenmeyer advised the parties to cooperate. This would help to solve ecological tasks as well: "We have to develop engines and transmissions in cooperation to reduce fuel consumption and emissions and to meet the economic demands." The car manufacturers were already in charge of 80 percent of today's transmission development. That expertise had to be used. Getrag, for example, favoured tailor-made solutions for the car manufacturers: "We envision a common supplier basis, common standards." Another strategy involved combining the global capacities and sharing licences. "This creates cost advantages," explained Hagenmeyer. Getrag would thus raise the production volume to approximately five million transmissions until 2015. A market for transmissions certainly existed: the number of produced vehicles would increase from 69 millions today to 93 millions, especially due to the mobility growth of the new markets.

Transmission goes global - which concept for which country?

"The need for mobility will increase dramatically worldwide," predicted Rita Forst, Responsible Manager Product Development at General Motors. There were currently 800 million cars on the markets worldwide; the number would increase to 1.1 billions until 2020. That equalled a growth of 15 percent. Philip Gott, market research company Global Insight, even predicted a market potential of three billion vehicles in 2030. Getrag manager Hagenmeyer emphasised that mobility was a must for economic development. Countries like Brazil, Russia India and China would be the future markets for car manufacturers and transmission developers. According to a study by Global Insight, sales in China alone would account for about 18 percent of the total global vehicle sales. BMW transmission developer Breitfeld, however, pointed out that the technology concept had to be adjusted to the constraints of these countries. "The consumption advantages of the various technologies are closely associated with the applications."

Manual transmissions were especially suitable for entering new markets. "Automatic transmissions are too expensive for entry-level cars with a sales price of 3,000 to 5,000 US dollars," reasoned Getrag manager Hagenmeyer. Manufacturers should initially invest in manual transmissions. Then they could use the basic technology to change over to dual-clutch transmissions (DCTs) if demanded. "This way there is no risk for the manufacturers to waste their investments". Getrag would launch DCTs in China in 2012.

According to several studies, continuously variable transmissions (CVTs) could win market shares in India. Dr. Clive Hickman, Head of Engineering at the Indian car manufacturer Tata Motors Ltd., expected about 600 million car drivers in that country in 2050. The CVT concept allowed for the best comfort in the high traffic density.

Japanese manufacturers are already prepared for this trend: according to a Global Insight study presented at the symposium, the production share of CVTs increased from 10 to 25 percent in the last three years and equals that of manual transmissions now. Although automatic transmissions will continue to lead the market, their share will decrease to just under 50 percent until 2017. The manufacturing costs for CVTs were in fact higher than for automatic transmission, but they would decrease as soon as the volume increased, stated Tianshu Xin of Global Insight. The advancement of CVTs was confirmed by Takashi Shibayama, Vice President Research and Development at the Japanese transmission manufacturer Jatco Ltd.: in 2007, Jatco had produced 2.6 million CVTs. The company would increase the production by 30 percent in the next five years.

In Europe, the chances of the DCT are promising. Dr. Stephan Rinderknecht, Development Manager at Getrag, explained why: "The dual-clutch transmission reduces the fuel consumption by at least four percent as opposed to manual transmissions while offering dynamics and driving pleasure."

Volkswagen (VW) is the first car manufacturer to use DCTs as standard since 2005. Michael Schäfer, Manager Technical Development for Dual-Clutch Transmissions, summarised: "Direct-shift transmissions with dual clutches combine the advantages of manual and automatic transmissions." Apart from consumption reduction, the DCT allowed an optimal transmission ratio without interruption of traction. The development of DCTs, however, was expensive. "The interaction of various components is the biggest challenge," confessed Schäfer. Factors like weight or vehicle aerodynamics were important as well to achieve the ecological goals. Therefore, VW cooperated with suppliers to develop lightweight magnesium components for transmissions.

Getrag manager Hagenmeyer was optimistic about the future of the DCT: "This is only just the beginning of the success of the DCT. Innovations will make great progress."

The DCT will not only be used in Europe, but also in the United States: "In the USA, dual-clutch transmissions, wet as well as dry ones, will gain market shares in the segment of small and mid-size cars," predicted Steve Thomas of the Ford Motor Company. Nevertheless, the automatic transmission would remain the dominant concept.

On the Japanese market, however, the DCT would not play a role. "Japanese people have a lot of expertise and experience in the field of automatic transmissions and are therefore not interested in dual-clutch transmissions yet," stated Global Insight market researcher Tianshu Xin.

Reduced fuel consumption due to hybrid, fuel cell and 8-speed transmission

Although the car industry is still concerned with the reduction of fuel consumption, there are different opinions about effective approaches. "The mobility we create has to be sustainable, but it has to balance legal regulations in terms of environmental friendliness, customer and market demands and efficiency," said Rita Forst of GM Powertrain. New transmission technologies were a first step: compared to 5-speed manual transmissions, 6 or 7 speed dual-clutch transmissions could already reduce the fuel consumption by five percent. She requested that the car industry had to abandon fossil fuels in the long run. At present, 98 percent of the vehicles were operated with fossil energy fuel. Her prediction: optimised and alternative transmission technologies would be complemented by hybrid concepts and fuel cell technology in future. "There is no way to avoid the fuel cell," Forst was convinced. Furthermore, all types of transmission should be hybrid-compliant in future.

Dr. Carsten Breitfeld of BMW doubted that it would be possible to use regenerative energies for vehicles comprehensively before long: "So far, all new energy sources had to prove their value in the stationary field before being applied in the mobile operation. We are not ready for this yet." BMW had tried to meet the economical, political and customer demands with the concept of "Efficient Dynamics" - based on the aspects mileage, weight and fuel consumption: "The consumption can be reduced by at least 15 percent while retaining the dynamics." To increase the maximum potential of 30 percent, the technologies of automatic and dual-clutch transmissions simply had to be combined. Instead of investing in new complex systems it was better to improve existing technologies. "Fuel consumption and CO2 emissions can be reduced best by optimising the conventional technologies. Let's work on this together," Breitfeld summoned the participants.

Dr. Michael Paul, member of the board at transmission manufacturer ZF Friedrichshafen, showed how transmission development can contribute to reducing the CO2 emissions. "There is no ideal, no best transmission concept," the expert dismissed illusions. Every transmission concept influenced fuel consumption and driving performance and had thus to be evaluated from case to case. The manufacturers, however, could reduce the fuel consumption by up to 60 percent in an ideal case by optimising powertrain and chassis; 42 to 47 percent could be technically possible. "Reducing the fuel consumption via powertrain and chassis by 30 percent can be achieved until 2010: up to 25 percent by hybridisation and up to 6 percent with the new 8-speed automatic transmission by ZF". According to his colleague Dr. Harald Naunheimer of ZF, the new 8-speed transmission consisted of the same number of components like the 6-speed transmission, but it improved the weight-to-power ratio by ten percent. Furthermore, it could be used for hybrids. "The 8-speed transmission is a totally new transmission concept". Since there were only two open shift elements in each gear the drag losses were significantly reduced. The efficiency was thus improved and the total ratio of the transmission increased. Modern torsional damper systems in the torque converter influenced fuel consumption and CO2 emissions positively as well. Dr. Michael Paul announced that the 8-speed transmission would enter mass production in 2010. Apart from the optimisation of vehicle components, a closer cooperation in the car industry was also important to Dr. Paul. "We have to work on developing potentials together. The refinement of optimisation requires long-term cooperations between manufacturers and suppliers."

Further information about the CTI Symposium Innovative Automotive Transmissions

The 6th International CTI Symposium Innovative Automotive Transmissions took place at the Maritim Hotel in Berlin from 3rd to 7th December 2007. 1,000 participants from 18 nations exchanged information about current developments on the transmission market in presentations and discussions. 90 speakers from the car and supplier industries organised the programme. 91 exhibitors showcased their products and solutions in the accompanying trade fair "Transmission Expo".

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ferit Küçükay, managing director of the Institute of Automotive Engineering at Braunschweig Technical University, was the technical chairman of the event.

Apart from eight plenary presentations the programme offered ten parallel series of presentations about different aspects of transmission development, a transmission test drive and two special days about hybrid drives.

The comprehensive conference documents are available from the organiser.

The symposium was supported by the following companies: Afton Chemical, AVL List, Diehl Metall Schmiedetechnik, Federal-Mogul, GIF Gesellschaft für Industrieforschung, RICARDO and Romax Technology Ltd.

The date for the next meeting is already fixed: the 7th International CTI Symposium "Innovative Automotive Transmissions" will take place in the Maritim Hotel in Berlin from 1st to 5th December 2008.

The symposium is organised by the Car Training Institute, a division of the conference and seminar provider IIR Deutschland GmbH.

Further information: http://www.transmission-symposium.com/pr>