Updating existing rail vehicles with a modernized drivetrain helps to improve fleet efficiency while keeping costs and service interruptions down. This approach is known as “repowering”. At this year’s InnoTrans, the international trade show for transport technology, ZF and Irish Rail signed a Memorandum of Understanding about a potential new repowering project starting in 2025. The partnership revolves around ZF’s new EcoWorld 2 six-speed powershift transmission, which decreases fuel consumption, improves ride comfort and reduces maintenance efforts.

Trucks automatically driving behind one another on the highway, 'platooning', or cars automatically changing lanes: Here vehicle movements have to be calculated and executed precisely and quickly without a human driver. Software and AI algorithms safely control the drive, brakes, front and rear wheel steering and damping systems. The more efficient the AI algorithms are, the better the available computing power can be used.

ZF is harnessing the power of software to develop smarter, more connected, and highly efficient commercial vehicle technologies. By integrating ZF’s intelligent software solutions with its chassis technologies, vehicle performance and safety can be improved, ensuring safer and smoother journeys. As automotive technologies shift towards greater digital integration, ZF is setting the pace as an enabler of smart and connected technologies. ZF is also able to leverage its software domain expertise from other vehicle segments within the ZF Group to produce intelligent systems quickly and cost effectively that can lower the overall total cost of ownership (TCO). 

In major ports around the world, there is a growing need for autonomous goods handling. The vehicles in the ports, which are operated around the clock and have largely been manually operated.

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.

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.

ZF has produced more than three million electric motors, a technology that is used worldwide in electric vehicles. ZF covers a broad spectrum of vehicle electrification: from purely electrically powered passenger cars and plug-in hybrids to electric drives for commercial vehicles. The production anniversary stands for a continuous reduction in the dependency on pure combustion engines as well as for the successful transformation to electromobility.

ZF honors seven of its global suppliers for their excellent performance. The ZF Supplier Awards are presented as part of the Group-wide Global Supplier Summit, which this year focuses primarily on sustainability. At the virtual conference, around 1,000 participants from all over the world gain an insight into the technology group's corporate strategy, new technologies and the resulting new requirements and challenges relating to purchasing and logistics.

ZF recently introduced the new AxTrax 2 LF electric portal axle for low-floor city buses. The new axle represents ZF’s latest e-Mobility evolution, offering improved performance to further support the commercial vehicle industry’s transformation towards a more sustainable future. The series production of AxTrax 2 LF is set to commence in 2025.

ZF has developed an electric motor which does not require magnets. In contrast to the magnet-free concepts of so-called separately excited synchronous motors (SESM) already available today, ZF’s I2SM (In-Rotor Inductive-Excited Synchronous Motor) transmits the energy for the magnetic field via an inductive exciter inside the rotor shaft. This makes the motor uniquely compact with maximum power and torque density.