Events · MAR 14, 2026 · 8 min
TASHKENT, MARCH 14 — The Silk Road test: Auman GTL covers 12,000 km without a single failure
The Tashkent — Kashgar — Istanbul expedition is complete. The tractor averaged 26.4 litres — full report inside.
Forty-two days on the road, three mountain passes and more than 12,000 kilometres on the odometer: the Tashkent — Kashgar — Istanbul expedition, return leg included, is complete. Two series-production Auman GTL tractors — no special preparation, taken straight from a dealer lot — ran the route at 20 tonnes of cargo and came back to Tashkent without a single unscheduled repair.
Route and conditions
The schedule was built like a real haulier's: 10–11 hours a day, nights at ordinary truck stops, refuelling at chain stations with no fuel selection. The hardest section, predictably, was the Torugart pass — climbing to 3,752 metres at minus 14; the most monotonous, 1,900 kilometres of Anatolian motorway at a steady 85 km/h. Telemetry logged every litre and every degree: the full dataset has been handed to factory engineers.
12 000 kmcovered without a single failure
26.4 Laverage consumption per 100 km at full load
What the consumption figures showed
The 26.4-litre average came at a gross combination weight of about 40 tonnes, mountain sections included. On flat legs the trip computer showed 23–24 litres; on the passes, up to 34. For a ten-truck fleet on the Tashkent — Istanbul leg, the roughly three-litre gap to the previous generation of tractors adds up to savings comparable to the lease payment on an eleventh truck.
«We didn't baby these trucks — that was the point. Loaded, over switchbacks, in frost and in forty-degree heat. The only thing we replaced in 12,000 kilometres was the filters, on schedule.»