Capital Equipment News January 2018

driver to be a good one, and allows a really poor driver to probably be slightly better than average,” says Prince. The same view is shared by Selesnick, who says the appeal of the AMT is that it can be driven by less skilled drivers, while ensuring less down time related to the replacement of manual clutch components. According to Swanepoel, the biggest and most noticeable benefits of the AMT are improved fuel economy and the lighter weight, which makes it easier for the vehicle to carry more loads (improved payload). “Another major advantage is the improved driveability, which results in less driver fatigue, especially in stop-start traffic situations,” says Swanepoel. Prince says a full automatic is unequivocally the best transmission in arduous, more difficult than standard applications. “50 years of practical experience prove that full automatic transmissions are hard to beat when it comes to start/stop applications such as city buses, refuse compactors, vehicles in mining/construction applications and fire/ emergency vehicles,” says Prince. Making light work of tough conditions In construction applications, with lots of starts/stops, often in muddy terrain with

Powerstar has introduced the AMT in its V3 long haul range.

Prince adds that the AMT basically offers better fuel consumption because the decision-making and the logic is consistent all the time, as it is not dependent on the driver’s mood of the day. “However, if you

have an excellent driver in a manually- driven vehicle, you may only see a fuel saving of 1-2% compared with an AMT. If you have a poor driver, fuel savings can go as high as 30%. An AMT allows an average

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