The Volkswagen Group intends to phase out the use of traditional automatic gearboxes in their product range entirely, replacing them with it’s advanced Direct Shift Gearbox, or DSG. It will begin the phasing out with Volkswagen cars that have their engines mounted transversely. Research is currently being conducted to adapt the use of the DSG transmission for longitudinal-mounted engines.
The DSG transmission is currently used in Volkswagen cars like the Passat, Golf, Touran, Eos, and the Jetta. It’s also available on the new Audi TT and the Audi A3, but Audi calls it S-Tronic instead of DSG. The Bugatti Veyron uses a specially modified DSG transmission to handle the crazy amount of power it’s quad turbo W16 engine produces. It’s also expected that Lamborghini might introduce a DSG-equipped car soon, since the Lambo-based Audi R8 will feature it.
It was developed by Borg-Warner for the Volkswagen Group. It uses two computer controlled clutches. The outer clutch pack drives gears 1, 3 and 5 as well as the reverse gear, while the inner clutch pack drives the 2nd, 4th and 6th gear. Each clutch pack is comprised of 4 smaller clutch discs instead of the normal single large clutch plate found in most gearboxes. This system allows extremely precise shifting that requires only 8 milliseconds thanks to gear preselection. For example, while you are in gear 2, gear 3 is preselected to cut down on shifting time.
The graph above taken from Audi’s technical write-up on the DSG (S-Tronic) system shows the improvement that DSG offers over a classic manual transmission. Notice the delays in the graph where a normal human driver takes a longer time to shift gears as compared to the nearly instant 8ms shifting of the computer controlled DSG gearbox.
The DSG gearbox is currently the quickest shifting automated manual gearbox out there. Here is a table with shift time comparions between the DSG and a few of it’s competitor gearboxes.
| Volkswagen DSG (Golf GTI) | 8 ms |
| BMW SMG II (M3 E46) | 80 ms |
| Ferrari F1 (Maserati 4200GT) | 80 ms |
| Ferrari F1 (360 F1) | 150 ms |
| Ferrari F1 (Enzo) | 150 ms |
| Ferrari F1 (575M) | 220 ms |
| BMW SMG (M3 E36) | 220 ms |
| Aston Martin Vanquish | 250 ms |
| BMW SSG (3-series) | 250ms (150ms for 1st to 2nd) |
| Alfa Selespeed (156 Selespeed) | 700 ms |
Do check out this straight line performance comparison video between a manual transmission Volkswagen Golf GTI and a Volkwagen Golf GTI equipped with a DSG transmission. It features drift king Keiichi Tsuchiya.
Related Posts:
Volkswagen DSG Direct Shift Gearbox
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Cool man! Soon, DSG will cheaper for everyone. I wonder when the Japanese will adopt it? VW Golf GTI is still too expensive! :(
wow! the future is here ! i tink the trick is thers not much power loss like the traditional auto gerabox..bt this is a seriously nice move…wen wil i be an owner of a VW! Toureg here i come!
acbc: Volkswagen has said that they will not be licensing DSG to any other car manufacturer.
A great move by VW but I wonder is the gearbox cheaper to maintain in the long run.
Wow its cool that they're putting it in the Lambo too. Apparently from the reviews, their current e-gear sucks. I think that other manufacturers have something similar in the works too although they're not licensing from VW.
lambo rox !
yup…i think other carmaker had similar tech like the vw group too…
hopefully i can get my touareg very soon ;-)
From what i heard, BMW been testing its own version of gearbox which is quite similar to VW DSG for quite simetime now.
wow.. thats a very bold move by VW. but i can't imagine the cost to change clutches when they're worn out. :) I only have to change 1 clutch in my car today.
in this kind of situation you will be a proud owner of VW.this is what we called the extarordinary feeling of driving a car.just cant afford to buy a VW here, unless my company pay for me or I managed to buy the golf gti's stucks at the port there. you know AP thing under declare everything…just cant pay the price with my money other people money yes….for sure who cares?
As usual, I'm thinking out loud…
Interestingly, the DSG gearbox wasn't even invented or developed by VW but by Borg-Warner. its funny how the usual bashers are quick to point out that a certain carmaker is not a car manufacturer because they use gearboxes developed by someone else.
Does this mean VW isn't a car manufacturer because the DSG gearbox, set to replace all gearboxes in their entire range, is not their own?
*BorgWarner is a U.S. automotive parts supplier, known for its automatic transmissions and transmission components, (e.g., electro-hydraulic control components, friction materials, and one-way clutches), turbo chargers, engine valve timing system components, and 4-wheel drive system components. The company has manufacturing facilities in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and provides highly engineered drivetrain component solutions to all three U.S. automakers as well as a variety of European and Asian customers.
The company is based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Robert S. Ingersoll formerly served as the company's CEO and Chairman.
wat happen if proton join vw ?
hhmmm…if they join the vw…they will get a lot of things…give benefits for them…like the seat,skoda….we can c a lot of improvement of the seat and skoda cars in term of the car dsg and their tech…
sky-high hope.. keep dreaming boyz.. ha ha ha..
no need to drag potong in this one lah..
sekali -sekala lets have a topic w/o em' inside…
cool… can i use this DSG thingy with my iswara?
this dsg is basically a vw product..its was funded and had engineers that worked on it…borgwarner came up wit the concept and design but dint have the testing capability …vw came in and took a risk and they were rewarded…actually there are similar gearboxes by other car makers in diffrent stages…vw just took a big risk to bring into production stage and got its reward..its basically like the mcpherson story where mr mcpherson had the concept and design but didnt have da resources….gm rejected him co they didnt want to take risk but ford took him in..well the rest's just history i guess
fully understood someone. but there are many who post in this forum, who are of the opinion that, a certain car manufacturer(we all know which one), is not really a car manufacturer or have the ability to build cars, because they have outside contractors, paid by them, to do work for them on their products.
but actually, from what i've read about the DSG, its actually a borg warner product, invented by them and not VW.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-Shift_Gearbox
it is a borg warmer product and invented by them but maybe as wut someone already said…he dun hv the testing capabilities and licensed it to vw…
what matter most is which car is using the DSG.bcoz we are not only buying the gearbox only right.if the american guy who designed and licensed teh patent then VW responsible to make use of the gearbox in a car.
Now who really have the hands on experience on driving a car with DSG.and please write about the comparison with other options?cheers everybody happy blogging.
the question here is, does it make VW any less of a car manufacturer? since they didnt invent, or design the gearbox.. its a german car, running an american gearbox for petes sake ;)
in the last month, there are at least 5-6 people who were very vocal against a car manufacturer who doesnt make its own gearboxes.. weird.
oh, btw…
borg-warner is hardly a company thats short of resources.. especially in the testing dept(i have no idea where you got that info from someone). They are fully capable of designing, building and testing any powertrain related product. They hire more than 17,000 people worldwide!!
VW "only" contributes 12% of their expected revenue for 2006. Ford contibutes the most at 14%. So whatever VW pays them in terms of their total revenue, is actually quite small. So I don't think they are depending on VW to pay their testing bills.
http://www.bwauto.com