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Volvo, one of the handful of large truck manufacturers in North America, introduced its I-shift transmission in Europe in 2002, and by the late 2000s about 75 percent of trucks in Europe were fitted with an automated transmission. Truckers in Europe adopted automated transmissions sooner than those in the U.S. “There’s still the diehards out there, but there’s some conversion happening of the diehards, too,” Daniels said.Ībout 85 percent of Freightliner’s semis now have automated transmissions, up from about 10 percent four years ago. But better products came on the market around 2015 and demand for them rose quickly since. “It just shifts and you don’t notice,” Slavin said.īrian Daniels, manager of Detroit Powertrain and component products for Daimler-Benz, which makes Freightliner trucks, said automated transmissions were a niche market six years ago. The new transmissions are now better integrated in the trucks and the computers have gotten more precise, evaluating engine torque, engine speed, vehicle speed and vehicle angle before shifting gears. #The last bastion 2018 manual“I drove one probably 10 years ago, and I didn’t like it,” said Ken Steinfest, an 81-year-old from Antigo, Wisconsin, who still drives a semi with a 13-speed manual transmission, his white labradoodle in the cab with him. #The last bastion 2018 driversThe computer would shift too late or too soon, and experienced drivers wanted nothing to do with being a passenger in a truck driven by a novice software program. Early versions of an automated transmission annoyed drivers. While very experienced drivers can coax close to the same gas mileage from a manual transmission that a computer can get, new drivers cannot.Īlso, the technology has improved in recent years. The computers controlling automated transmissions can “down-speed” – lower the revolutions per minute of the engine at high speed – effectively and are thus better at controlling gas consumption and emissions. #The last bastion 2018 driver“Being able to get a driver and get them into a truck and trained and up and running as fast as possible becomes very valuable to a lot of companies,” said Wesley Slavin, on-highway marketing manager for Peterbilt, which now produces nearly 90 percent of its trucks with an automated transmission. Most new drivers didn’t grow up driving a stick shift. Over-the-road carriers face a long-running nationwide shortage of truck drivers, and the shift to automated transmissions is accelerating thanks to the ease of training new drivers to use them. Regional and local trucking companies that use older trucks may hold on to manual transmissions for longer, but the days of a trucker gear-jamming down the interstate in a 36-speed are coming to an end. ![]() “In the next three to five years, pretty much everything is going to be automatic,” said Gary Pressley, president of Heavy Metal Truck Training in Eagan, Minnesota. ![]() Today, the vast majority of trucks rolling off assembly lines are outfitted with the newfangled transmission, which is more efficient and quicker to learn at a time when haulers are eager to lower costs and desperate to find more drivers. Truckers tend to use the word automatic to describe newer gearboxes, however, and they have the same effect of freeing a driver from shifting gears. That’s different from the automatic transmission that’s common in cars and light trucks. In its place is a manual transmission with a computer that automates the shifting of gears. The strictly manual transmission is disappearing from the cabs of semitrailer trucks – and the strong economy is one reason why. #The last bastion 2018 how to“Most of the drivers I know, they all say automatics are for people who don’t know how to drive a truck.” “I just think it would be weird,” said Berg, who lives near Willmar, Minnesota when he’s not driving. He’s not about to start driving a truck that shifts automatically. Bryan Berg drives a semi with a 13-speed transmission, and he’s been double-clutching and shifting gears in his rig for 30 years. ![]()
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