A Day Out with Volvo’s I-Shift Automated Transmission

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Truck Talk
Volume 2 Number 3

Volvo’s new automated-manual transmission, I-Shift, will blow drivers away. It will do anything you want it to, or it will manage the shifting all on its own — depending on how you choose to drive it. This is a driver’s transmission, but it will please the truck’s owner too. Its default is programmed for economy, but the driver can get performance out of it in a very natural and intuitive way.

I-Shift launched in North America in September of 2006, and it had seen four years of service in Europe before that. With more than 80,000 transmissions in service before we had out first drive on one, we figured all the kinks would have been work out. And we figured right. Two years after it’s North American launch, it’s still getting rave reviews.

Ed Saxman of Volvo Trucks North America and Today’s Trucking’s Jim Park put the I-Shift transmission through its paces on a day-long test-drive on the hills and back roads of North Carolina and Virginia. We came away more than satisfied with the way it performed.

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