Many car friends for Volkswagen's product sequence will not be unfamiliar, such as Volkswagen's mid-range car series will use its own dual-clutch transmission, high-end models with ZF's 8AT, and the strangest thing is that entry models such as the early 1.6L, today's 1.5L models but use Aisin's 6AT, to know that Aisin 6AT is synonymous with high-end in the hearts of many car friends, then Volkswagen to their lowest-end products with advanced 6AT reasonable, is not contradictory?
Of course, the contradiction, and the reason why this contradiction will occur, is mainly because in the long process of popularization of the car, consumers gradually formed the inertia of thinking; these thinking inertia such as the High Fuel Consumption of American Cars, the Poor Repair of German Cars, the Durability and Fuel Saving of Japanese Cars, or CVT Easy to Break, AT High-end, Double Clutch is to reduce into, and then such as the torque beam must be poor, the double wishbone must be better than McPherson, etc.; the cognition under these inertial thinking makes the understanding of the car vague and general!
Better or worse, high or low do not pass through the category, but to specific problems to analyze specifically; such as the high fuel consumption of American cars in the past, but now the fuel consumption of American cars is reasonable (determine the time node), is the McPherson of Porsche 911 higher than the double wishbone suspension cost of BMW 5 Series? Moreover, Xiali has also used double wishbones, so it is inaccurate to compare high and low by category! In the same way, are they all called 6AT, are they all advanced? Can the Volkswagen 1.5L's 6AT and Highlander's 6AT be the same thing?
6AT's product lineup is numerous
Many car friends always think how good 6AT is, the problem is to use the category to judge good or bad, in the cognition of many friends seem to feel that 6AT only represents one thing? In fact, 6AT has a number of models, a variety of torque capacity, the simple point is that the 6AT is divided into three, six, nine, etc., as shown in the above figure Aisin horizontal AT product matrix, we can find that according to different torque capacity, 6 speed AT has a total of 6 products, 200n · m below the torque capacity there are two (low-end), 200-300n ·m torque capacity has 3 models, 400n · m above the torque capacity has a product!
In this way, it is easy to figure out the mystery on the transmission model, the original products are called 6AT, but it is not the same thing, the Volkswagen 1.5L, 1.6L models with 6AT is actually 200n · m below the torque capacity, and the 7th generation Camry with 6AT is 200-300n · m model, 400n · m above 6AT is 2.0T Highlander to use, so the judgment is not very clear? Looking at the above figure, Aisin longitudinal transmission product matrix, the longitudinal 6AT has 4 models, the torque capacity starts at 300n·m, and the highest version reaches 700n·m, what is this concept? Such a 6AT can be equipped on top of a supercar!
The cost of the 6AT for the Volkswagen 1.5L model is low
Writing now, let's return to the contradiction at the beginning of this article, why do Volkswagen's low-end models use 6AT, and mid-range models use their own dual clutches? Because the 6AT used in the low-end model of Volkswagen is very low-end, the cost is lower than that of the dry double-clutch transmission (10,000 units of procurement cost), so Volkswagen to the entry of 1.5L, 1.6L models equipped with 6AT is definitely not a conscience choice, just to pursue lower costs; high twist 6AT and low torque 6AT cost difference is a lot, and the entry specification of the 6AT we have been domestically produced for 12 years, the industrial field involved in the design and development and other costs have long been amortized!
Why don't Volkswagen's entry-level models use their own dual clutch?
In addition to aisin's low torque 6AT cost controllable, the difficulty of matching is also the key to determining how Volkswagen chooses; Volkswagen has intended to gradually complete the whole car series since the installation of dual-clutch transmissions on civilian vehicles, but it needs the process, and the dual-clutch transmission does need to continue to improve, so the popularity of dual-clutch is gradual, the earliest is only the Volkswagen car with dual-clutch, at that time many riders said that double-clutch is not good, if the good Audi why not use? Later, audi A4 was used, and riders said that if it is good, why not use A6, and then Audi A6 is also equipped with a double clutch (note that the Audi A6 in the US market is also a double clutch, and it is a full series of double clutch)!
Now many people are starting to say why the Audi A8 does not use a dual-clutch transmission? Oh, maybe the replacement of Audi A8 will also use a dual-clutch transmission, the purpose of volkswagen is so, but the time and maturity of the problem! So why don't Volkswagen's entry-level 1.5L or 1.6L models use dual clutches? In fact, volkswagen entry model is not not the use of double clutch transmission, but the driving experience after using the double clutch is not good, in fact, the 1.6L golf used the double clutch transmission that year, but the driving experience is poor, frequent setbacks, so Volkswagen gave up the entry model equipped with a double clutch transmission!
In fact, small displacement self-priming because the torque is generally low, so it is not suitable for matching the dual-clutch transmission, Ford 1.6L with dual-clutch model driving experience is not very good (it seems that now do not play double-clutch) so this is not just a problem for Volkswagen, so on the market we can see some large-displacement self-priming dual-clutch models such as Volkswagen R36, Ferrari some old models, etc., but small displacement self-priming with dual-clutch transmission examples are few and far between, often small displacement supercharging with a dual-clutch transmission So Volkswagen does not give low-end models with double-clutch merger there is no mystery, because low-end 6AT is cheap, because small displacement self-priming is not suitable for matching double clutch!