Tata Motors – The country’s largest commercial vehicles manufacturer, will equip its buses and lorries with the automated manual transmission (AMT) gearbox in the near future. We saw the AMT in the new Zest diesel and Tata has now decided that its array commercial vehicles deserve the same treatment. We feel that this is a good move and will go down well with the customers. For those of you that don’t completely understand this tech, it’s basically like a manually operated gearbox except that it’s got an electric motor and some smart computers to do the clutching work for you. And in commercial vehicles, this application will help the drivers so that they won’t be fatigued during their regular operations. And the good news is that if Tata Motors sets this plan in concrete, other commercial vehicles manufacturers like Bharat Benz, Eicher and Ashok Leyland might also join the fray.
Buzz is that Tata Motors has already commenced testing of the AMT tech which has found its place in the Ultra range of vehicles made by the company. Tata is also to equip its famous Ace pickup with this auto box. The company is well aware of the benefits of using this setup as AMT gearboxes can be more fuel-efficient than their manual and fully automated transmission cousins. You see this at work on the Zest with the AMT box, which is actually more economical than it’s manual gearbox sibling. And it’s not just commercial vehicles which will be fitted with this transmission, but also many of the future passenger cars like the Nano and the Bolt which will have this setup. These cars are slated to arrive in the market in 2015.
AMT technology for commercial vehicles is a step in the right direction. This will definitely bring down fatigue levels of our bus and truck drivers.
As far passenger car segment is concerned, I think TML has lost the first mover advantage by not launching Nano AMT. MSIL is ready with Alto AMT and will be launching it soon. May be TML wants to check the prices of Alto AMT, so that it can competitively price Nano. If thats the case then the wait is understandable.
Also, TML needs to bring the Nana Europa face to new-gen Nano. The current look has started to look a bit dated. The one with smoked lamp cluster isn’t quite revolutionary and still has that older look.