Set sail1992

Chapter 1192 Looking Ahead
Seeing Deputy Chief Engineer Liu and others who were making a lot of noise, everyone didn't think there was any surprise at all.

Yes, everyone is no stranger to the AMT automatic transmission used on commercial vehicles, that is, trucks. After all, as early as the 80s, AMT automatic transmissions had already appeared on trucks, and after the 90s, Volvo , Mercedes-Benz, MAN, Scania and other European commercial vehicle manufacturers have also begun to develop and manufacture their own AMT automatic transmissions for commercial vehicles.

Although Sinotruk Group has not developed its own AMT automatic transmission, it has never stopped communicating with European and American counterparts. It is no stranger to AMT automatic transmission, but it is not unfamiliar. People don't care about the development of AMT automatic transmissions, and feel that there is no need for commercial vehicles to use automatic transmissions.

Listening to Deputy Chief Engineer Liu and other people's remarks that "commercial vehicles do not need to be equipped with AMT automatic transmissions", Zhang Qihang instantly felt that their thoughts were similar to those of the "veteran motorcycle driver party" on the Internet: the real Veteran drivers, do you need an AMT automatic transmission?Not to mention the speedometer, I don't even need an engine tachometer, just listen to the sound of the engine and know when to change gears!This is a truly qualified driver, such as speedometer, fuel gauge, gear display, etc., are all heresies!Especially the gear display, you are a motorcycle driver, you need to see the current gear to decide how to change gears, what kind of motorcycle do you still drive?

But the result is that with the development of science and technology, more and more data are displayed on the instrument system of motorcycles. LCD instrument for data...

"Mr. Zhang, what's the matter?" Seeing that Zhang Qihang seemed to be distracted, Cai Xiangdong touched him lightly, and asked in a low voice, "What are you thinking?"

"Oh……"

After being touched by Cai Xiangdong like this, Zhang Qihang came back to his senses and said in a low voice: "It's okay... Mr. Cai, do you usually go online?"

"Occasionally..."

Cai Xiangdong nodded lightly, and looked at him seductively, meaning "Why are you asking this all of a sudden?"

Zhang Qihang smiled, and lowered his voice: "I think what Lao Liu said is too similar to what some netizens on motorcycle forums claim to be old drivers."

Some self-proclaimed veteran drivers on motorcycle forums?

Cai Xiangdong was stunned for a moment, and then the corners of his mouth turned up slightly knowingly: "Don't say it, it really looks like it."

Obviously, Cai Xiangdong knew the stalk in Zhang Qihang's words.

Zhang Qihang was slightly surprised: Lao Cai actually knew what he was talking about?
In fact, Zhang Qihang just raised the idea of ​​"whether it is necessary for CNHTC to develop its own AMT automatic transmission" at the meeting. This is not a formal project, but a discussion.

Let's talk about Deputy Chief Engineer Liu and others who are discussing enthusiastically...

"Who said there is no need to develop AMT automatic transmission?" Sun Vice President in charge of production said: "AMT automatic transmission is one of the supporting projects of the 863 plan during the National Eleventh Five-Year Development Plan, which shows that even at the national level Speaking of which, we also hope to develop AMT automatic transmissions for commercial vehicles, isn’t the country more far-sighted than your old Liu?”

"This one……"

Hearing this, Deputy Chief Engineer Liu paused, not knowing how to answer for a while.

Because what Vice President Sun said is correct, the commercial heavy-duty AMT automatic transmission is indeed one of the 863 projects in the National Eleventh Five-Year Development Plan, which can be considered as a top-level emphasis on commercial heavy-duty AMT automatic transmissions Come on, it can be considered that there is something wrong with Deputy Chief Engineer Liu's consciousness: Okay, you think it is useless for a product that the country attaches great importance to from the top?

At the same time, Cai Xiangdong was also discussing this with Zhang Qihang...

"Mr. Zhang," Cai Xiangdong asked Zhang Qihang: "AMT is good, but we don't have any technology accumulation in the field of AMT automatic transmission in China. In other words, any driver who can drive a heavy truck has many years of experience in manual transmission, do you really think it is necessary for us to develop AMT?"

"I understand what you mean," Zhang Qihang nodded, and also said softly: "Even if it is modified from the existing manual transmission, the cost of the AMT automatic transmission is more expensive than the traditional manual transmission." The cost of AMT is a bit higher, and the performance in terms of fuel consumption is not very good, and for users, it is an increase in their procurement costs. From these perspectives, it seems that there is really no need to develop AMT automatic transmissions... "

"That's right, that's what it means," Cai Xiangdong nodded again and again: "Although AMT is indeed very friendly to drivers, it can reduce truck driver fatigue, improve driving comfort, and also improve safety from a safety point of view. Driving safety, but is it really necessary?"

Zhang Qihang smiled and said: "What you said is reasonable and completely correct, but Lao Cai, you can turn around and look at the passenger car market, and you can understand why the higher authorities attach so much importance to commercial vehicles. The development of AMT automatic transmission technology."

Cai Xiangdong was stunned for a moment: "The passenger car market?"

"Yes, the passenger car market," Zhang Qihang nodded and said, "In the 90s, even imported Mercedes-Benz and BMW had quite a few manual transmissions, but now, even our Huateng Group's For Excelle sedans worth around 10 yuan, sales of models equipped with automatic transmission accounted for more than 20%, while models equipped with semi-automatic transmissions accounted for more than 60% of sales, and sales of models equipped with pure manual transmissions accounted for less than 20%. [-]% ... you've been in the auto industry for years and you know what that means."

"..."

Cai Xiangdong pursed his lips, instead of answering the question right away, he frowned and thought about it.

To be honest, before this, he really didn’t pay much attention to the development of transmissions in the field of passenger cars. After all, the original intention and concept of the design of commercial vehicles and passenger cars are too different, such as engines for heavy trucks, design The requirement is that there is no overhaul for 200 million or 300 million kilometers, and the engine maintenance cycle can even be replaced once every 10 kilometers or even 20 kilometers.

And what about passenger cars?
The engine design requirements of many domestic automobile brands are only 100 million kilometers, and the oil change interval is only 3000 to 5000 kilometers, which is very different from trucks!
But even so, in the field of passenger cars, users are still more inclined to choose automatic models.

He is even sure that for the same car, if the price of the manual transmission model is the same as that of the automatic transmission model, then the sales volume of the automatic transmission model will account for at least 99.99% of the total sales. There are one or two crazy manual transmission enthusiasts or pretending to be X criminals, aren't they?Especially for some criminals pretending to be X, everyone is just driving a scooter for grocery shopping, but he can drive a sense of superiority, which is "driving sense, handling sense, and integration of people and vehicles", The problem is that a grocery shopping cart that may be less than 10 yuan and equipped with a 1.X displacement self-priming engine has a gross sense of control, driving, and the integration of people and cars?
So the question is, will this situation in the passenger car market be fed back to the commercial vehicle field?
wrong!

Cai Xiangdong's brain suddenly flashed, and he realized that he still had a problem with the perspective of the problem: the key point is not the cost of the heavy-duty AMT automatic transmission for commercial vehicles, but that this technology cannot be absent in China!
Let’s take a look at the domestic passenger car field. Because the technology of automatic transmissions is monopolized by foreign transmission giants, all domestic car companies can only stretch their necks to be slaughtered by others, and they can only give whatever price they offer, although I don't know how much domestic foreign exchange expenditure is used to purchase automatic transmissions every year, but it is definitely not a small amount.

So, conversely, what about the commercial vehicle market?
Will it follow in the footsteps of passenger cars in the future?

Cai Xiangdong asked himself, with his father and lessons learned in the passenger car market, if he stood in the perspective of an industry leader, he would definitely attach great importance to the development of heavy-duty automatic transmissions for commercial vehicles...

Then the problem comes, when the top management starts to pay attention to this matter at the national level, as the top three commercial vehicle manufacturers in China, even if they think it is necessary to develop AMT automatic transmissions, what should they do? Do I need to say more?
Thinking of this, Cai Xiangdong let out a long breath, nodded and said: "Mr. Zhang, you are right. As a leading company in the domestic commercial vehicle industry, our Sinotruk Group is to lead the pace of industry development and develop automatic vehicles for commercial vehicles. In the case of the gearbox, we are duty-bound!"

"Indeed, I think so too," Zhang Qihang nodded with a smile: "More than that, I think we should go further."

"Oh?" Cai Xiangdong raised his eyebrows: "How do you say?"

In the field of commercial vehicle transmission systems, in addition to AMT automatic transmissions, there are also AT automatic transmissions, the most famous of which is American Allison Corporation. This "AT automatic transmission" is technically the same as that of passenger cars. The AT automatic transmission can be said to have the same source, and it also has a hydraulic torque converter in the front and a standard planetary gear structure in the back, but it is comparable to passenger cars in terms of maximum power, maximum torque and service life. The AT automatic transmission used can be too high.

Of course, the technical difficulty is much higher than the AMT automatic transmission widely used by European companies. Now, Zhang Qihang mentioned "going a step further". In Cai Xiangdong's view, is it possible that he still wants to develop AT transmissions for commercial vehicles?

If this is the case, it is beyond the current technical strength of Sinotruk.

(End of this chapter)