ZF and Foton Start a New for Commercial Vehicles

A few years ago, ZF established 2 joint businesses with Foton, a Chinese commercial vehicle (CV) producer, to manufacture and sell transmission solutions for CVs. Now, both companies have come to the stage of officially opening a manufacturing facility in Jiaxing, located near Shanghai. This initiative is aimed at the manufacturing of AMTs for heavy and light CVs.

This enterprise, named as ZF Foton HCV Automated Transmissions (Jiaxing), in which ZF has the control block of shares (51%), specializes in heavy CVs. Both companies will put in great efforts in promotion of sophisticated ZF transmission solution TraXon for CVs in China. This unit will be installed on CVs manufactured by Foton. ZF argues that relative to manuals, the TraXon solution curtails the tank average by up to 5 %.

TraXon transmission

According to the Foton officials, this new step in cooperation will combine strengths of both parties, which will provide new opportunities on the Chinese market. With advanced gearbox technologies designed by ZF, Foton CVs receive a number of competitive advantages, which will certainly appeal to potential Chinese clients.

Wolf-Henning Scheider, CEO of ZF, at the opening ceremony of the new production facility

The new plant has already started production. It is claimed that the output capacities of the plant will be increased step-by-step. With a performance coefficient of 99.7 %, TraXon is considered to be one of the most effective solutions for CVs currently available on the market. In addition, TraXon can be upgraded with additional features, guaranteeing its durability and flexibility in the light of future market changes. The list of additional features can include the ZF’s predictive gearshift feature. With improved use of the rolling function this can improve performance characteristics. The all-terrain feature can enhance operational characteristics of the gearbox.

Moreover, TraXon solution manufactured at the new plant will be equipped with the propshaft brake. This system effectively slows heavy trucks down without any negative impact on the main brake. This feature can enhance reliability and increase the maintenance interval, therefore ensuring additional economic benefits.