Transmission Development On The Way To An Electrified Future

15 years of the CTI Symposium Berlin stand for a time of great progress in transmission and drive train. Drives are increasingly electrified, their control is becoming more and more complex, vehicle networking and automation are increasing.

The first CTI symposium took place 15 years ago in a relatively small group in Offenbach - with 250 participants, three exhibitors and two parallel series of lectures. In 2016 it became a large congress with 1350 participants, with 135 exhibitors from 20 nations and over 90 lectures. In his welcoming speech in Berlin, Prof. Ferit Küçükay recalled the many advances in recent years. From the beginning, this included new hybrid concepts and most recently the introduction of the new transmission category “Dedicated Hybrid Transmission”, DHT for short, at the end of 2015. Prof. Küçükay predicts a share of 15% to 25% of “highly electrified” vehicles in 2025 - favored by battery prices, that could drop below $ 100 per kWh in 2022. But what does the increasing electrification mean from the perspective of the transmission developers?

The infrastructure is a crucial factor

"Volkswagen on the way to electrification - diversity in the drive train" was the first lecture by Dr. Ulrich Eichhorn, CTO of the Volkswagen Group. Future emissions legislation can only be met with a mixed proportion of electric vehicles, with modular construction kits, in order to be able to cover all stages of electrification, from mild hybrids to pure electric cars. Eichhorn expects a range of around 500 km as standard in 2020, with new battery technologies of around 700 km from around 2024.

The charging infrastructure remains a decisive factor: "If an inventor came today with the internal combustion engine, he would also have a problem with missing petrol stations".

The driver wants comfort above all

Dr. Renate Vachenauer, Vice President Transmission, Drive Train, BMW Group, spoke about the "complexity of transmission development". According to Vachenauer, the drive control system has to cope with more and more input variables: in the case of hybrid drives, two or more motor torques have to be coordinated, and there are also many variants in the applications. Vachenauer sees the need to do more virtual development than before in order to reduce costs and increase robustness. Modules for the development software are needed, which can map the variety of drives.

The second big trend besides electrification is automated driving. As a "passenger", the driver has only three requirements for the drive: "Comfort, comfort and convenience". However, since the cars would initially not only drive autonomously, both modes had to be displayed in the vehicle. "Then we are at the top level of complexity."

Content of the article:

• Page 1: Transmission development on the way to an electrified future
• Page 2: Charging the car like a smartphone

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