ZF has delivered its first thousand units of the CeTrax lite electric drive for light commercial vehicles since volume manufacturing began in April 2023. Due to an increase in demand from Japanese commercial vehicle maker Isuzu, the volume production ramp-up was steeper than anticipated. Isuzu uses the drive to power the Isuzu Elf EV, the company’s newest light distribution truck. This year, more volume manufacturing is scheduled to begin soon.
The 150 kW max output CeTrax lite all-electric drive is located in the centre of the vehicle chassis, where the traditional gearbox would typically be found in combustion cars. Since October 2023, Isuzu has been providing clients all around the world with ELF EV vehicles that are outfitted with CeTrax.
Kleber Vinhas, Location Manager of the ZF Friedrichshafen plant, said, “We are proud to have met the needs and requirements of the market with our CeTrax lite. CeTrax lite is on its way to becoming a successful global product and is accelerating purely electric and locally emission-free delivery traffic. At the same time, we are investing and preparing further volume production launches for customers with the CeTrax 2 dual, the next electric central drive from Friedrichshafen for heavy commercial vehicles, set to start production.”
According to ZF, the electric central drive for light commercial vehicles continues the success story of its ‘big brother’ CeTrax, which went into volume production in 2020. The central drive, which is also produced at the ZF Friedrichshafen location, is mainly used in buses with orders from customers in South Korea, the USA, Australia, and Europe. With its high level of reliability, the robust central drive ‘made in Friedrichshafen’ has made a name for itself worldwide in the tough everyday life of public transport. In addition, the new CeTrax 2 dual electric central drive will be manufactured from Friedrichshafen from this year on.
A special feature of ZF’s CeTrax concept is that the all-electric central drive is suitable for electrifying existing commercial vehicle platforms. In this way, manufacturers can expand their portfolio towards purely electric vehicles (EV) without having to make further significant alterations to their design platforms.
As the volume production of the ‘large’ CeTrax, which has also been manufactured in Friedrichshafen since 2020, shows, this concept is particularly attractive for manufacturers of city buses, as well as for special vehicles operating in ports and logistics centres. Electrification with CeTrax lite offers just as much potential for small delivery trucks, city buses or special vehicles, which are mainly used for the ‘last mile’ deliveries to consumers and therefore are perfectly suited to operate in low-emission zones of inner-city environments.
Kleber Vinhas adds “An electric drive from ZF means that the hardware components and the software are optimally matched. This makes CeTrax lite particularly efficient in practice.”