Automotive & Heavy Vehicles
Pioneering smarter, cleaner fuel-efficiency Valtra is a market-leading manufacturer of tractors and agricultural machinery and part of the AGCO Corporation. Its innovative SmartTouch technology is employed in its latest T254 model. This has contributed to the series winning the Agritechnica 2018 ‘Tractor of the Year Award’. Valtra has also become the first tractor manufacturer in the world to begin using renewable diesel for its tractors, as Philip Yorke reports.
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altra was founded in 1951 and is headquartered in Suolahti, Finland, from where it operates its extensive European state-ofthe-art manufacturing facilities. The company has another major production plant situated in Mogi das Cruzes, Brazil, where it also produces combine harvesters, cane harvesters, self-propelled sprayers and seed drills. Today Valtra employs over 1200 people and in 2017 recorded sales of more than €100 million. The company manufactures around 25,000 tractors a year at its two plants.
Award-winning features Valtra’s newest model series, the Valtra A4 (75-130hp), has won the Red Dot 2018 Design award in the ‘Commercial Vehicle’ category. This coveted award continues Valtra’s success in the world’s most prestigious design award competition in which Valtra was also recognised in 2016 and 2017. The competition was launched in the 1950s and this year attracted over 6300 entries from 59 countries. These were judged by a jury of 40 independent design experts from
around the world. The brand new design of the A4 series makes it a truly versatile performer designed to boost the efficiency of farmers, contractors and municipalities alike. In a separate event in 2018, the Valtra T254 tractor featuring its ‘SmartTouch’ armrest technology won the renowned ‘Tractor of the Year 2018’ award at the Agritechnica Trade Fair in Hannover, Germany. Included among its many winning attributes is its ‘fitted-as-standard’, SmartTouch armrest which features a nine inch touch screen, an intelligent multi-use drive lever and a new hydraulic joystick which gives the most straightforward user interface in the industry. This allows the driver to control and adjust almost any setting of the engine, transmission, hydraulics, the AutoGuide and Telemetry. In addition, the 5-step Powershift transmission features four main and two creeper speed ranges for a total of 30 speeds in both directions. Shifting is precise and effortless whether operated fully automatically or manually with the drive lever. The T254 Versu also features Valtra’s special Hill-hold feature, which enables easy starts using just the accelerator pedal, even uphill. This is in addition to Valtra’s revolutionary, patented Industry Europe 59
