Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/718131
Volvo Trucks North America has placed all its chips on the future of automated manual transmissions (AMT). The company has already made its I-Shift AMT standard on the compa- ny's trucks, and market penetration of Volvo's flagship gearbox hit 88.8 percent as of May. Magnus Koeck, Volvo Trucks' vice president, marketing and brand man- agement, says now that 94.5 percent of Volvo trucks are spec'd with Volvo engines, even bigger things lie ahead for I-Shift and AMTs in general. "I bet in five years you won't see a manual [transmission] anymore," he says. The company believes so heavily in the future of shiftless driving that it is targeting growth opportunity in heavy haul and vocational segments by including optional crawler gears in 13- and 14-speed I-Shifts. "We just weren't able to go slow enough (before)," Wade Long, Volvo Trucks' director of product market- ing, says of unlocking concrete and paving operation custom- ers, for example. I was able to take a 14 speed I-Shift with crawler gears for a spin around Volvo Construction Equipment headquarters in Shippensburg, Pa., in June. Many of the familiar comforts you'd expect from previous generations of I-Shift remain, but they have been refined to new heights to compliment Volvo's soon-to-be- released lineup of 2017 engines. Crawler gears up can accommodate a GCVW of up to 220,000 lbs. and allow for speeds as slow as 0.6 miles per hour with a 3.58 rear axle ratio. The VHD I was driving took it a step By Jason Cannon 12 www.bigrigowner.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 6 High Performance Diesels > Volvo's new 14-speed I-Shift AMT with crawler gears