ZF TRW Reaches Production of One Billionth Colette Brake Calıper

ZF TRW has a huge reason to celebrate this year. Just recently, the Active and Passive Safety pision of ZF AG has reached another huge industry milestone with the production of its one billionth brake caliper within the Colette design family.

Commenting on their achievement, Manfred Meyer, vice president, global brake engineering for ZF TRW, said that no other disc brake design has reached such widespread acceptance on world roadways and today, disc brakes are acknowledged as the most efficient method of stopping light vehicles. He also noted that they never stop innovating or improving their products. “As vehicles evolve to ever increasing levels of requirements for CO2 emission reduction, safety, electrification and sophistication, ZF TRW continues to seek new approaches for efficiency and performance.”

In 1991, ZF TRW launched the industry’s first-ever “ball in ramp” rear caliper with integrated park brake. With an efficient design, it has driven the conversion to full disc brake mainly on C segment vehicles and above resulting in improved safety. Up to this day, this revolutionary technology is still dominating world production on rear calipers.

The debut of the first electric park brake with the motor on caliper design concept in 2001 was a significant step toward the future of systems such as brake by wire and the integration opportunities required to support state-of-the-art safety systems. In this technology, ZF TRW remains the world-leader with over 65 million manufactured.

Fuel efficiency is also considered as another key driver in developing disc braking systems—from lightweight materials where a number of calipers are now made of aluminum, in pursuit of “zero drag” systems that produce minimum friction between the rotor and caliper during non-braking service.

Meyer concluded that ZF TRW has been a trailblazer in brake systems for many decades and continues to innovate across all aspects of the technology to offer best-in-class solutions for light vehicles worldwide. “Furthermore, advanced braking will be one of the key enablers of automated driving, and together with its broader portfolio and systems integration expertise, ZF TRW is ideally placed to drive this megatrend forward.”