After volume production of the CeTrax lite electric drive for light commercial vehicles started in April 2023, ZF has already produced its first thousand units. The ramp-up in volume production was steeper than planned because demand from the customer ISUZU increased. The drive is used by ISUZU to power the latest generation its light distributor truck, the ISUZU ELF EV. Further volume production is set to start imminently this year.

For this paper, the digital twin refers to a digital asset that exists alongside the physical asset during its operational life, providing insight into and feedback on the physical asset’s performance and health. Thus, the focus is on the DTI, with the potential to aggregate data into a DTA for the gearbox design being considered, and within the DTE set up by Hexagon.

In respect of the physical asset across its life, nothing is more important about its performance than its ability to function, i.e., reliability, and for CAE, nothing is of greater importance than to be able to predict the reliability of a product being designed. Thus, for this study, whilst gearbox noise, efficiency, and thermal behavior may be of interest, the primary interest is fatigue and reliability.

The international automotive supplier Forvia Hella receives the John Deere Award in the sustainability category. The leading manufacturer of agricultural machinery honors Forvia Hella for its heat recovery system at the Großpetersdorf site in Austria. The system saves around 175,000 kilowatt hours of natural gas per year and therefore around 32,000 kilograms of CO₂. The award was presented at the John Deere European Supplier Conference in March 2024 in Mannheim, Germany.

SKF has decided to join and co-fund Mission 0 to contribute to the development of groundbreaking technologies and deliver solutions to eliminate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in materials, production and end-of-life of passenger cars. In an initial pilot project, SKF will collaborate with academia and industry experts in a research arena to solve GHG emissions in materials and processes that require new knowledge or disruptive technologies.

Voith air compressors are technological leaders and, especially in the truck sector, also represent a significant milestone on the road to more environmentally friendly mobility. Due to their two-stage compression with intermediate cooling, they greatly outperform single-stage air compressors in delivery mode. And this is with much lower energy consumption and CO₂ emissions.

Eaton recently announced that Ben Sheen, chief engineer, Eaton’s Mobility Group, was recently elected to the Board of Trustees for the Gear Research Institute (GRI) at Penn State University. The GRI is affiliated with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Gear Manufacturers Association (AGMA) to conduct research and development, consulting and analysis for gear related needs. 

The European Union is currently not “Fit for 55” regarding its self-defined target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030 – particularly, when it comes to cutting emissions in the mobility sector. This was the essence of the 7th international FEV Zero CO₂ Mobility Conference in Berlin.

ZF continues its pursuit of Next Generation Mobility across passenger car as well as the spectrum of light, medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles with a planned $500 million investment in its Gray Court, South Carolina, facility. Offering everything from traditional ICE to e-mobility technologies, for both passenger car and commercial vehicle applications, ZF Gray Court is officially the company’s first North American flex manufacturing facility.

CES 2024 boasted 4,300+ exhibitors, including a record 1,400+ startups from around the globe. The event continued to showcase the innovative trends shaping our future.

Siemens Digital Industries Software announced today its collaboration with Voltaiq to accelerate battery manufacturing, by combining their strengths to offer unparalleled capabilities for battery manufacturing-focused companies. This collaboration aims to bring together the production-proven capabilities of both Siemens’ Insights Hub and Voltaiq’s Enterprise Battery Intelligence (EBI), customers can gain access to unparalleled capability specific to battery-domain companies to help rapidly scale operations smoothly, from initial testing to full-scale production lines.