Allison Transmission recently was selected to supply the standard transmission for the new Mack MD Series of medium-duty trucks.
The company also recently said it will open a new Vehicle Environment Test (VET) Center this summer.
The Allison 2000 Series transmission offers FuelSense 2.0 with Dynactive Shifting for Mack’s MD trucks designed for dry van/reefer, stake/flatbed, dump and tanker applications. The 2500 Highway Series will be the standard transmission, and a 2500 Rugged Duty Series will be available for applications requiring a power take-off (PTO).
“Mack’s decision to equip their new MD truck with the Allison 2500 helps Mack meet customer demand for a durable, dependable medium-duty truck,” said Rohan Barua, vice president of North American OEM sales at Allison. “These trucks are versatile and we appreciate Mack’s confidence in Allison as the 2500 delivers in both fuel efficiency and superior performance for a variety of applications.”
Mack recently showcased a Class 6 MD6 model with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 25,995 pounds at The Work Truck Show 2020. The MD6 will not require a Commercial Driver’s License to operate for non-hazardous payloads.
The MD7, a Class 7 model, has a GVWR of 33,000 pounds. Both the MD6 and MD7 are exempt from the 12% Federal Excise Tax (FET).
Mack MD Series serial production is expected to begin in July 2020 out of Mack’s Roanoke Valley VA manufacturing facility. Mack currently is accepting orders.
“Mack and Allison have a decades-long partnership of combining two industry-leading brands,” Barua said. “We are proud of our history with this customer and our market-leading presence in the medium-duty market.”
Allison says its VET Center officially will open July 8. The 60,000 square-foot building will house two environmental chambers capable of simulating a broad range of environmental conditions and duty cycles, including temperature extremes, grades, altitudes and other on-road conditions.
Specifically, the center will house a hot soak chamber, a cold soak chamber and two chassis dyne-equipped environmental chambers. The capabilities include temperature extremes from -54 degrees to 125 degrees Fahrenheit and altitude up to 18,000 feet, grades and other on-road conditions. By utilizing the test center, Allison and its OEM partners will be able to accelerate development and validation of conventional powertrains, alternative fuel vehicles, electric hybrid vehicles and fully electric vehicles for all aspects of performance, including emissions and fuel economy. The center is capable of accommodating most commercial on- and off-highway and wheeled defense vehicle applications.
Allison said its investment in next-generation innovation will pay off immediately because the VET breaks the seasonal dependency of the product development cycle. It eliminates Mother Nature and other variations in fuel economy and performance testing by providing vehicle-level controlled laboratory conditions. The center can simulate any temperature, any road and any location, on any day all in one location. But the real payoff is taking the reliable and repeatable data produced in the VET and driving those correlations back into models and simulations to create more sophisticated virtual product development.
As the only one of its kind in the Midwest, the VET also will enable Allison and its partners to bring new technology and products to market faster and more efficiently, Allison maintained. And when not in use by Allison, the Center will be available to external parties to support their testing and certification needs.
“Allison’s long history of innovation continues to be written as we move into the future with our enhanced testing and advanced product development capabilities at our new test center,” said Randy Kirk, senior vice president of product engineering and program management at Allison Transmission. “As a company dedicated to innovation, we are doing more than ever to ensure we stay integrated within our customers' needs, as well as monitoring environmental regulations for emissions, noise and air quality.”