Just months after the wet-clutch 6-speed Powershift dual clutch transmission was released by Ford (and available in Thailand on the Ford Focus TDCi), Ford has announced a new dry clutch version, which will be installed in small cars in North America. The dry clutch transmission is lighter as it does not require hydraulic pumps and fluids, cooling lines and external cooling, unlike its wet clutch counterpart which has clutches bathed in oil.
The Powershift transmission is essentially a manual transmission with two clutches, but has the following algorithms to help it perform as smoothly as a real automatic:
- Neutral coasting – The clutches will automatically disengage during coasting when the brakes are applied to reduce parasitic losses, helping with fuel economy.
- Precise clutch slip control – this improves NVH and smoothness at low engine speeds.
- Creep mode – Some twin clutch transmission do not creep. Creeping is when your automatic transmission car moves forward automatically without having to press the accelerator as long as you let go of the brakes.
- Hill assist – Automatically maintains brake pressure on slopes to prevent the vehicle from rolling back on a gradient surface.
Ford says it wants its vehicles to go nearly 100% 6-speed by the year 2013, and a large number of this will be twin clutch applications. The trucks will probably stick with a torque converter automatic, but with 6 ratios.
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neat technology, too bad ford is never established here. its probably less established than chevrolet, weird enough though!
anyways some typos, i believe lack of sleep to be the problem!
looks like a fantastic gearbox. seems to have looked at, and fixed almost all the issues if any related to these types of gearbox.
ford hasn’t taken any bail-out money from the US government yet. hope it stays that way. I suppose they’re not so bad off, since they are still continuing their world rally programme.
DSG DOES creep though…
Talking about these dual-clutches tranny reminds me how inferior Japanese carmaker is.
Yes they have it on their Mitsubishi Evo X and Nissan GTR (unknown supplier), but where is Toyota and/or Honda?
Which means, in term of innovation, europeans still the best. The only drawbacks, new technology takes time to mature and often affects reliability.
And watch out, japanese is best in term of copy and fine-tune.
i dun think so
the parking assit is japanese first and Europeans fine-tune it
8 speed gear box also japan first and mers and bmw is going to use also
nissan gtr gearbox supplier is an japanese company
why cant ppl just use manual
the japanese certainly have the technology. but in an overall package, the europeans tend to pack their cars with more gadgets than the japanese in general. but the way the japs do it, they tend to lose out on the emotional side.
Something good coming out of ford. It will be some time before people will be able to use it