FULLY AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION

Recently i was working on a project which involved installation of a fully automatic transmission for commercial vehicle. To me it was exciting that it was rare that we were using this technology for commercial vehicle when it is not used in passenger luxury cars in India. Usually it happens that a technology when tried and tested in passenger vehicle segment enters the commercial vehicle.
so what is fully automatic transmission. when there is not clutch and gear arrangement, it is called fully automatic vehicle. everyone must have experienced how tiring it is driving a car through a market/ heavy traffic jam in peak hours, we change gears like mad. clutch gear clutch brake clutch gear...... hhhh... ultimately driving becomes a torture. Fully automatic transmission (F.A.T.) is a boon for the above situations. In FAT vehicle you dont find a clutch or gear stick, it contains only accelerator and brake. the gear box is intellegent enough to change gears as per the gear requirement based on the inputs from engine and speed curve. There is a hydraulic coupling instead of a clutch which makes the gear shift smooth and noiseless. The electronic chips see that everything is as per the requirement.
so for a layman FAT is just like driving GEARED HONDA ACTIVA instead of HERO HONDA KARIZMA ZMR. see the difference.

So why such expensive technology in commercial vehicle? thats what i asked my boss.
Commercial vehicles are used to make money, the owner doesnt look for fuel economy but fuel efficiency. similarly the owner finds that putting a FAT reduces the driver fatigue, increases the life of the transmission system, reduces cycle time and thus makes money..
Its a fect that on an avg every day there are 80,000 gearchange in a commercial vehicle, just imagine 80000 times the whole gearbox is stressed, strained and fatigued. fully automatic transmission eliminates this problem since the hydraulic clutch and automatic gear change make it possible to minimise the damage to the entire energy supply line from engine to tires.

in short FAT is THE THING for applications where there is very high gear change density, for our commercial vehicles in areas like mining, city bus application and tippers.