Allison Transmission equips 49 Mercedes-Benz refuse trucks acquired by the City of Goiânia

The capital city of Goiania, State of Goiás, just purchased 49 Mercedes-Benz Atego 1729 trucks equipped with Allison 3000 Series™ transmissions. The new vehicles will be operated by the Companhia de Urbanização de Goiânia – Comurg, the Urbanization Company of Goiania.

SÃO PAULO, Brazil, July 2020 - For the first time, Comurg has begun using the Mercedes-Benz Atego 1729 trucks with fully automatic Allison transmissions for refuse collection in the city capital of the state. Comurg is a mixed-capital company having the City Administration of Goiânia as the holder of its majority capital.

“For two years, I've searched among other refuse collection companies that operate automatic trucks in Brazil,” explained Luiz Carlos Cascão, of the Comurg Transportation Department. "As a result, we ended up choosing automatic trucks for this type of application, which are already a trend among refuse collection companies across the country. This will be the first time we have this type of transmission in our trucks."

The purchase of automated trucks was just one of Cascão's options, but, as its maintenance cost base pointed out, the clutch system replacement is expensive. He then realized he had no choice. “In our current fleet, the clutch system represents our biggest expense,” said Cascão. “Trucks with a manual transmission need to change the clutch in a 5,000/ 8,000 kilometers interval since the refuse collection service is extremely exhausting for vehicles.”

The new trucks, sold by the regional Mercedes-Benz dealership, Tecar Diesel, are still undergoing the bodybuilding and customization process. They are expected to begin operation during July.

“Although we still don't have the trucks in operation, after our first experience with the Atego 1729, we were quite happy. Besides, the people from DCCO – Allison representative in Goiânia – were here giving us technical support and answering our questions. I think we will have a good experience with automatic transmissions,” said Cascão.

The Allison Transmission 3000 Series is designed to equip medium-sized commercial vehicles. Intended to operate with maximum efficiency in a wide variety of applications - concrete mixers, firefighters, distribution, construction, security vehicle, among others – this series is available with short or long gear ratios and can have up to seven speeds. The PTO (power take off), which is driven by the engine, as well as the integral output retarder are available as options. The retarder provides better braking to the vehicle, reducing brake wear. Its operation is managed by Allison's 5th generation electronic controls, which also have prognostics capabilities.

“The choice of an Allison automatic transmission for certain types of heavy-duty jobs, such as the refuse collection, is increasingly consolidated in Brazil. The preference showed by private fleet owners and public companies, such as Comurg, only reinforces the quality of our product. The analysis of fleet managers is based mainly on the efficiency of maintenance costs and the productivity of their vehicles and, in this regard, our transmissions are unbeatable,” said Evaldo Oliveira, Director of Operations for Allison Transmission for South America.

20 Jul, 2020

Back

Allison Transmission (NYSE: ALSN) is a leading designer and manufacturer of vehicle propulsion solutions for commercial and defense vehicles, the largest global manufacturer of medium- and heavy-duty fully automatic transmissions, and a leader in electrified propulsion systems that Improve the Way the World Works. Allison products are used in a wide variety of applications, including on-highway trucks (distribution, refuse, construction, fire and emergency), buses (school, transit and coach), motorhomes, off-highway vehicles and equipment (energy, mining and construction applications) and defense vehicles (tactical wheeled and tracked). Founded in 1915, the company is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. With a presence in more than 150 countries, Allison has regional headquarters in the Netherlands, China and Brazil, manufacturing facilities in the USA, Hungary and India, as well as global engineering resources, including electrification engineering centers in Indianapolis, Indiana, Auburn Hills, Michigan and London in the United Kingdom. Allison also has approximately 1,600 independent distributor and dealer locations worldwide. For more information, visit allisontransmission.com.

Legal

This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact contained in this press release are forward-looking statements, including all statements regarding future financial results. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "expect," "plans," "project," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "intend," "forecast," "could," "potential," "continue" or the negative of these terms or other similar terms or phrases. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve known and unknown risks. Factors which may cause the actual results to differ materially from those anticipated at the time the forward-looking statements are made include, but are not limited to: risks related to our substantial indebtedness; uncertainty in the global regulatory and business environments in which we operate; our participation in markets that are competitive; the highly cyclical industries in which certain of our end users operate; the failure of markets outside North America to increase adoption of fully-automatic transmissions; the concentration of our net sales in our top five customers and the loss of any one of these; future reductions or changes in government subsidies for hybrid vehicles and other external factors impacting demand; U.S. defense spending; general economic and industry conditions; the discovery of defects in our products, resulting in delays in new model launches, recall campaigns and/or increased warranty costs and reduction in future sales or damage to our brand and reputation; our ability to prepare for, respond to and successfully achieve our objectives relating to technological and market developments and changing customer needs; risks associated with our international operations; labor strikes, work stoppages or similar labor disputes, which could significantly disrupt our operations or those of our principal customers; our intention to pay dividends and repurchase shares of our common stock; and other risks and uncertainties associated with our business described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. Although we believe the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that the expectations will be attained or that any deviation will not be material. All information is as of the date of this press release, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in expectations.

SOURCE Allison Transmission Holdings Inc.