While electronic parking brakes are becoming more mainstream in traditional cars and crossovers, traditional mechanical parking brakes are still the norm when it comes to larger SUVs, pickup trucks, and vans. Well, all that might change with this development from Hitachi Automotive Systems.
Thanks to the Japanese automotive supplier’s brake business unit in Europe, electric parking brakes might become the norm in SUVs, pickup trucks, and light commercial vans with a gross vehicle weight rating of 3.5 tons and below as well. This pretty much covers all the current pickup trucks, pickup-based passenger vehicles (PPVs), and even large vans.
According to Hitachi, the system offers a considerable weight advantage saving around three kilograms or more compared to their traditional mechanical counterpart.
Moreover, it also offers improved safety functions such as preventing a vehicle from inadvertently rolling away. It’s also seen as fundamental as carmakers strive for more self-driving functions including automated valet parking where a car can scan for a free space and park itself automatically.
Hitachi didn’t say which vehicle will receive the new system, but they did say that it will go into production for vehicles in the Asia-Pacific region by next year. Moving forward, they say that 25 percent of all vehicles worldwide are fitted with EPBs with numbers expected to grow even more.
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