Good morning and welcome to Infineum Trends 2016. As you have just seen in the opening video, the theme for this year’s show is “exploring global drivers & challenges”.
Together let’s explore: how as the world focuses on conserving its resources, our industries are challenged to balance delivering more performance with even higher levels of efficiency and the vital role that advanced lubricants have in enabling them. We start this year’s TRENDS presentation with a look at the power transmissions market.
Transmission hardware continues to diversify at an unprecedented rate as OEMs compete to improve efficiency. Soon 8, 9 and 10 speed stepped automatic transmissions will account about 30% market share.
In the next 5 years we expect both continuously variable transmissions (or CVTs) and Dual Clutch Transmissions (or DCTs) to account for most of the global production increase.
While, other transmission designs will remain only a small portion of the market.
We asked Khaled Zreik, Drive Line Fluid Technical Specialist from GM, for his thoughts on the regional preferences in transmissions.
Khaled Zreik: CVT is gaining more presence and high visibility in the US, and again, for a small and mid‐size vehicle, CVT may become dominant in the US. As far as DCT, DCT is popular in Europe where the manual transmission is the baseline. In the US, the driving quality of the DCT has not been widely accepted so far. (Q5) Selection these days is based primarily on fuel economy and market capability. I would say emission is a given, driving quality is a given as well, and of course cost is always a consideration.
OEMs continue to make hardware changes and add more forward speeds in their stepped automatic transmissions, as they endeavor to improve efficiency. With significant gains still to be found, this is a trend that we expect to continue.
We asked Khaled for his views on automatic transmission hardware trends.
Khaled Zreik: I think stepped gear automatic transmission will continue to be refined and maintain dominance for the next 10 years. (Q2) The future for transmission would be more speeds, smaller packaging, and also newer materials. But I think there has to be a ceiling to how many speeds can be added until the return can no longer offset the cost or the extra complexity and weight. (Q4) Electrification is growing rapidly in the next 20 years, especially as more autonomous capability has been built into vehicles.
Hardware changes bring new challenges that next generation fluids will need to deliver against, from providing the shift comfort users expect, to improving the vehicle’s efficiency while ensuring component durability over the entire drain interval.
Next generation fluids continue their trend towards lower viscosities. Additionally, improved wear protection, better anti‐foaming properties, improved oxidation, high friction control, formulation flexibility, and material compatibility that includes electronic components, must be delivered at “fill‐for‐life” ‐ drain intervals.
Khaled returns to share his thoughts on co‐engineering of the lubricant with the hardware and future challenges transmission fluids will face.
Khaled Zreik: I think OEMs and formulators, additive company will continue the trend of co‐developing fluid and component. I think new light‐weight material will challenge the existent lubricant formulation. And I also think that fluid consumption will be decreased and the fluid will need to be more robust and fill for life. Trends for lowering viscosity will continue, and architecture will be designed around the lower viscosity fluid.
OEMs will increasingly use CVTs because their variable drive ratio provides better overall fuel consumption, so we expect new designs to come to market. The greatest growth is expected in China and South Asia where smaller engine sizes match CVT torque capacities.
JATCO, the largest CVT manufacturer, is increasing their focus and recently introduced CVT8 units delivering a 10% increase in efficiency.
Honda and Toyota have recently introduced new CVTs and GM will for the 2018 model year. Subaru has replaced 98% of its automatics with CVTs and we see Hyundai expanding CVT use beyond Korea, into China.
The features of these differing CVT designs put additional stress on the lubricant. CVT fluids must have high steel‐on‐steel friction to handle torque but also control fatigue and sliding wear while providing extended anti‐shudder durability.
High pressure pumps make shear stability important. Plus they must have good Oxidation stability, air release capability and paper on steel friction. And all this needs to work equally well for both belt and chain CVT applications.
Service fill volumes have been in decline with extended drain intervals and smaller sump sizes. But due to an increase in miles travelled, volumes are now stabilizing.
By 2018 we expect the need for DEXRON®/MERCON® and high viscosity ATFs to decline. Demand for newer, low viscosity ATF and CVT fluids will grow significantly. Although CVT fluids will still only account for about 5% of total service fill volumes.
In this steadily growing market, fuel economy is driving hardware change.
OEMs are adding more speeds to conventional automatic transmissions, and introducing more DCT and CVT units.
Transmission type preference varies by region and OEM. Since AFTs are becoming a vital design component of the entire system, co‐engineering with the OEMs is increasingly important.
Hardware changes mean next generation fluids must be custom tailored for the specific requirements of each platform to maximize fuel economy benefits and hardware protection.
