Like the hard-working trucks that move the industry, the heavy-duty market is in constant motion. New technologies, improved equipment and an overall demand for efficiency have spurred a trucking evolution. Sitting down with Göran Nyberg, president of Volvo Trucks North American sales and marketing, Fleet Equipment learned that this is only the beginning of a new era.
“Diversity is one of the trucking industry’s greatest attributes, but it also presents challenges for truck manufacturers,” Nyberg explains. “There’s no ‘magic bullet’ to address the needs of all motor carriers, so we’re constantly engaging our customers to better understand their operational demands and refining our products to provide the greatest value to each unique application. This was the case with our recent introduction of our Optimized Series trucks—eight configurations tailored specifically for weight-sensitive applications. It’s up to manufacturers to understand the full spectrum of customers and ensure that its products are adding value to their operations.”
Fuel efficiency is on the forefront for every fleet and carriers are scouring every part of the fuel efficiency equation, including weight. Reducing the weight of the tractor also allows carriers to increase their payload, which can really add to their bottom line.
“Bulk haulers we’ve spoken to generally assign a value of about $6 per pound to their commodities,” Nyberg says.
Vehicle integration continues to positively affect fleets by improving fuel efficiency and improving vehicle uptime. Strong upward sales trends over the past five years reflect the performance and benefits fleets are experiencing. For example, last year, Volvo integrated powertrains—Volvo engine and Volvo I-Shift automated manual transmission—accounted for nearly 68% of all Volvo invoiced units in the United States and Canada.
Additionally, an integrated powertrain is also the basis for Volvo’s XE—exceptional efficiency—powertrain packages, which improve fuel efficiency by about 3%, according to the company, by lowering engine rpm at a given vehicle speed. It’s a concept Volvo calls “downspeeding.” XE represents a bit of a sea-change in terms of the drivetrain’s operation, but customers have embraced the technology, which was spec’d in 2013 on about 23% of Volvo trucks with Volvo engines.
Nyberg reminds fleets that improvements in vehicle uptime can also deliver even greater benefits to the company’s bottom line.
“Remote diagnostics, our remote communication platform, is standard on all new Volvo-powered vehicles, providing proactive diagnostic and repair planning assistance with detailed analysis of critical diagnostic trouble codes,” he says. “The benefits of this service are compelling—a demonstrated 71% reduction in diagnostic time at service locations and 25% reduction in average repair time—and very well received by our customers.”
The trucking industry has only begun to scratch the surface of connected truck technology and its ability to help improve vehicle uptime and safety, Nyberg shares.
“We imagine vehicles in the not too distant future, perhaps five years from now, will be able to self-diagnose and be repaired remotely via wireless updates,” he says. “Given NHTSA’s focus on vehicle-to-vehicle technology, we anticipate a progression from current crash avoidance technologies that use radar and cameras to ECMs that ‘talk’ to other vehicles to mitigate crashes.”
Safety is a corner stone of Volvo trucks, well known as a safety leader thanks in large part to passive safety features like the three-point safety harness, and the Volvo cab and safety cage, which protect drivers in the event of a crash.
