Saving the world … one gear at a time.

Posted by Carl
May 6, 2008

Decades ago cars were produced with gear boxes offering only three or four forward gears. These days, high-end models can offer up to seven or eight gears. Volkswagen is following suite, and is upgrading its Direct Shift Gearbox (DSG) from a six speed to a seven speed. This implies many fuel saving opportunities for the firm.

 

 

Firstly, the new seven speed S-tronic automatic gearbox (as it is now known) is made to fit both longitudinal and transverse applications – offering more economical driving to almost all of VW and Audi’s models.

 

Secondly, the new S-tronic can handle up to 550 Nm of torque (at 9,000 rpm). This means that larger diesel engines (e.g. Audi’s 3 litre v6 diesel) can be accommodated in more models, especially larger size models that could benefit from the fuel economy offered by a diesel engine.

 

Thirdly, shifting speeds have again been improved, taking only a few hundredths of seconds to move between two gears and thus saving time that the vehicle is not under propulsion. This reduces the power needed to get from A to B, and thus the fuel needed from A to B.

 

It might seem a bit trivial, adding another gear to a gearbox, but it has been shown over and over again that fuel economy can be improved this way. Add to this the application options open to VW and Audi for its vehicles, and the company could be able to reduce its fleet emissions average by simply offering more diesels engines per model. The first models with S-tronic will reach European showrooms from May 2008 onwards, debuting in the new Q5 SUV (which shares its underpinnings with the new A4 and A5 ranges).

 

Relevance for South Africa: There is little reason to believe that this gearbox will not find its way to South Africa – whether in the A4, A5 of Q5 - resulting in an increase of especially diesel engined models offered.

 

Sources: The Financial Channel; Motor Trend; Car Pages; Automotive News Europe

 

Picture courtesy of Autoblog.com

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • muti
  • digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Reddit
Fuels and powertrains, Cars

If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Comments

No comments yet.

Leave a comment

(required)

(required)


For spam detection purposes, please copy the number 4778 to the field below: