AlliedSignal has accelerated development of electronic braking systems with its German joint venture partner Knorr-Bremse.

Mohsen Sohi, newly-appointed president of the company's Truck Brake Systems division, believes a change in the current federal brake standards would lead to the acceptance of EBS. "It has to go through an evolution and the customer has to see value," he said in a recent exclusive interview with truckinginfo.com. "But the trend to more responsive systems and intelligent vehicles will lead to EBS."
Sohi said the EBS development would not be at the cost of air-actuated antilock braking systems. "We will take a balanced approach. We will continue to invest in EBS for the future, but we will not forget about ABS. In fact, we plan to add more features to it."
Sohi believes AlliedSignal's relationship with Knorr-Bremse makes it "the strongest braking system supplier in the world, both in terms of what we sell and our technologies. We are working closely with Knorr-Bremse so that we don't duplicate work. There are some areas in EBS development where we lead and there are some areas where they lead. Our approach is global technology with regional applications."
Sohi is very aware of mistakes make by companies that try to push new technologies on truck buyers. "We don't come up with solutions and force them on customers," he said. "We want to create products that customers can see value in. The application of technologies in Europe is different than here, certainly. For example, the air disc brake has far more acceptance in Europe, but it's not the optimum solution for braking here. So we have to look at technologies that may seem good and do the adaptation at a regional level to create value for customers."
Read more about AlliedSignal's future plans in the December issue of Heavy Duty Trucking.