Manual vs. Auto and future employment

I doubt seriously we ever see a gas engine again. But they are tinkering with injected "additives" on demand, which may include a gas like additive to increase burn.

Much like the NOS system for cars, except it will be computer controlled and only used when needed. NO ! I don't mean to imply we will get NOS on a big truck LOL

While you haven't heard a lot from the manufactures about this. You have seen the guys who are tinkering with the water idea. Miserably, I might add.

Engine tech for diesels is playing catch up. The fact they have been doing it forever on gas engines has helped. But we're still a long way from having a decent diesel engine. More electronics...yet to come.

A prime example of diesel engine technology is Volks Wagon. The Rabbit got 25 mpg in it's early days. Now that same engine has been bumped to 45+ mpg with the new electronics at a higher HP output and top speed...pretty #### good in anyones book.

Auto trans, are in line to take advantage of new tech as well. Like the new "dual-clutch" technology. While the dual clutch tech was designed to fit in smaller cars. It has passed into the larger ones, because it had the benefit of faster and smother shifts. So fast in fact, it takes a computer to analyze the data.

All these advances will come to the trucking industry...in the future.

 

This truck has somthing thats called smartshift kinda like auto stick in my old dodge intrepid.
to bad my hyundai accent doesnt have autostick that would be so much fun being able to shift and not worry about a clutch
Like my Diesel power tech instructor D for dummy

 

Some autoshifts (Eaton Fuller Ultrashift which has the centrifugal clutch) is only rated up to 1850 lbft of torque. The Eaton autoshift has a clutch pedal. Meritor makes one without a clutch pedal. Allison is in the market to. The autoshifts are nice in city driving. I recently drove a freightliner with a 650 hp cummins and an allison 6 speed auto in it cross country grossing at 75k lbs. I would have liked to have a manual in it for some of the hills that I was going up and down. Then you are going to have the new hybrids from paccar. That is a different beast all together. Personally I don't like it. It is like driving a hybrid bus. I do believe that the industry is going to go more towards autos because they do not have to train a new hire as much to drive one vs. driving a manual trans. ME I had to learn on all makew and models of transmissions, synchronized and unsynchronized manuals in semis, autos all four different kinds, and hybrids. Autos have a specific rpm range that they are programmed to stay within. This rpm range is ussaully no more than 300rpms. Very limited on hill climbing ability.