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| The robots who change gear for you |
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| Tuesday, 12 August 2008 | |
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Brian McCulloch gets a taste of the electronic wizardry of the latest automatic gears For many years robots have changed gears in top-level racing cars. The best drivers in the world long ago gave up the tricky business of using a clutch and gearstick in favour of electronic switches, usually fixed to plastic paddles behind their steering wheels. Now a robot gear change comes in cars you or I might buy, like the Peugeot 308 110 HP diesel I took for a test drive. The company is not the first to offer such a gearbox but it is so pleased with the results that it has been singing its praises from the rooftops. At first glance there is little to distinguish the robot box from a normal modern automatic. The gear selector has three positions on the right hand side, Reverse, Neutral and Automatic, and a gate to the left for Manual, with plus and minus signs for changing up and down. These functions are doubled by paddle changers next to the steering wheel. A Sport button is also included in the gear change switches.  While I have enjoyed driving automatic cars with big engines, previous experiences with small engines have not been happy. A traditional automatic changes the gears using a torque converter, which saps the power from the motor, something which becomes very noticeable in a small engine. What oomph a small-engined car might have in a traditional automatic is lost as the engine works hard at changing the gears, using about 10% more fuel than in a similar manual. In the test car, none of that applied: in fact, the car uses around 7% less fuel than the manual. From the first gear change in automatic mode, you are aware that the box is different from a traditional automatic, with the engine noise and driving sensations being similar to a change with a driver using a clutch and gear stick. What happens is that when the computer decides to change gear, using factors including engine speed, the position of the accelerator and brake pedals, wheel speed and road adherence, a clutch is pushed open by an electric motor before another electric motor changes the gears. At the same time, a second clutch and motor assembly positions the gears in the box ready for the next change up or down. It is the same principle as used in modern Formula 1 racing cars, except that the timing and parameters are suited to road use. Automatics come into their own in town traffic and the robot box copes very well. The computer brain adapts the changes to the style of driving, so when trickling through traffic the gear changes are leisurely, but when you press on a bit they are faster, even more brutal than most drivers would change manually. It was a real eye opener and is probably the way most cars will change gear in future. The 308, which hit the showrooms last autumn, has now become a feature of the French roadscape and is earning a solid reputation. The test car, a demonstrator with 4,900km on the clock, had no squeaks or rattles.  A similarly-equipped car recently won two world records for fuel consumption on a 25-day journey across Australia. It recorded an average consumption of just 3.13 litres per 100km which equated to CO2 emissions of 85g/km. It also won the record for travelling 1,919km on one 60-litre tank of fuel. My favourite robot story, which I remembered while testing the car, dates from the early 1980s, when a friend, in the last years of his apprenticeship to become a fitter and turner, was working in a factory making machine parts. He was transferred to a workshop where his fellow workers thought it would be fun to set him the task of commissioning a new computercontrolled lathe foisted on them by management, since none of them had the faintest idea how to work it. They told him to make brass bolts needed on a regular basis for one of the machines they made. My friend sat down, read the manual, racked his brain about the little he had heard about such machines and then spent a couple of hours experimenting and setting it up. When everything was ready, he hunted around for enough brass to keep it going for an hour, found an empty oil drum for the bolts it would make, turned it on and went off for his 30-minute lunch break. He returned to find the workshop in an uproar. The older workers had wandered over to the machine and found more bolts made in 30 minutes than they made in a month. Needless to say the unions were not amused. The Peugeot 308 110 HP diesel was loaned by Peugeot Garage Moderne Serreau, the Périgueux concessionaires. |
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