• Can Eaton's AutoShift automated shift system really produce measurable
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fuel consumption benefits? This was another question Exel Logistics hoped to answer at the trials, with the help of two MAN tractors—AutoShlft is an MAN F2000 option which costs around £2,000.
Both the new MAN 19.414 tractor's in the trials ran at just under 38 tonnes COW. In one the 404hp engine was driving through an Eaten S-Series 16-speed synchromesh gearbox with a conventional manual shift. The other had exactly the same box, fitted with AutoShift fully automated gearshifting.
The two drivers were Stuart Morton, MAN's UK demonstration fleet controller (and an acknowledged ace at squeezing maximum fuel economy from the marque); and Phil Horobin, an Exel driver who is normally at the wheel of a Renault Premium working on Exel's Toyota contract.
The average for the two drivers in the AutoShift MAN was 7.00mpg. Remarkably, the average for the manual-shift truck was
much better at 7.50mpg. However; Morton points out that it would be unwise to read too much into these bare figures.
The AutoShift tractor had covered only 60(1km on the day of the trial, compared with 8,000km on the manual-shift unit. And the AutoShift is programmed to keep engine speed in the green sector (1,200-1,500rpm) while he drives the manual version to make the most of peak torque, extending down the rev range to 900rpm. Yet the average speed of the two tractors in the trials was the same. Perhaps the AutoShift's shift points could do with a little reprogramming, at least for flat routes.