9771445115000 05 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 $8.95 including GST HINO LOOK AHEAD ELECTRIC TRUCK FUTURE TAREAXLESSAVING FLEETBANANAICONIC TECH KNOW
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FY SERIES
This is where fantastic ideas like the road train or the B-double come in, as well as the adaptation of imported trucks to meet our conditions, and which only we could come up with. This was not a particularly auspicious time for the trucking industry, but it is part of the founding myth of the trucking industry as it exists today.
f there’s one thing you can be sure in the world of trucking, it is that it is going to change, and fast. Therefore, succeeding in the trucking industry is all about change management. There are new challenges coming over the horizon all of the time, and it is up to the trucking operators of Australia to react to these and still get the job done.
The whole nature of the industry will have changed by then, big changes will have been made. However, you can be sure that good old Australian ingenuity is going to be at the forefront of getting the most out of low and zero emission trucks.
MANAGEMENTCHANGE JUST A THOUGHT
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EDITOR
I
The opinions expressed in PowerTorque Magazine are not necessarily the opinions of, or endorsed by the publisher unless otherwise stated.
Now the latest challenge to this culture of innovation and smart adaptation is to do all of this that we’re already doing, but to do it without producing carbon dioxide in the process, or more precisely to gradually lower the amount of carbon dioxide the trucking industry is producing over the next 30 years.From my point of view, this is an exciting time to be reporting on the trucking industry and the development of trucks. I can see that there are going to be some completely off the wall ideas being tried by Australian operators over the next 20 years.
4
Anybody who has worked in the industry for a long period will tell you that the one thing which has been constant throughout their career is change, big changes. It is going to be difficult for many in the industry to let go of the diesel in their blood. And yes, there are still going to be some diesel powered trucks in 2050.
POWERTORQUE September/October 2022
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The easy transition to working outside the confines of the law to get the job done has all but disappeared in the vast bulk of the industry, but that instinctive adaptability remains as a central part of the culture of the trucking industry.Itisthat very adaptability, that willingness to innovate and to push the boundaries, looking for that tiny percentage of improved productivity and developing innovative ways to make sure that loads are safe.
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The strength of the trucking industry is in its adaptability. In days gone by, the adaptations which enterprising truck operators had to develop involved mechanical and physical development. It was about ensuring that this particular underpowered truck could pull this overloaded trailer without blowing up the diff on the first hill that it came across.
HINO LIVING INTERESTINGINTIMES
AND SYNONYMOUS WITH THE TRANSPORT OF BANANAS
1422ICONIC
52 IT’S SMART, REALLY SMART!
ISRI SEATS • Supporting drivers for more than 50 years • Seating – on a higher level 0297566199 isri@isri.com.au www.isri.com.au the brand behind the brands
One of the big topics to be discussed at the LBRCA Conference was chain of responsibility and how it affects the rural transport industry, not just in New South Wales, but nationally.
The aftermath of the pandemic and the shortages it created, mixed with the high demand for trucks sees Hino living in interesting times for truck manufacturers.
On any highway in Australia, you will spot the distinctive white trailers and white trucks with the Blenners logo emblazoned in yellow on the trailer and on the truck, the fleet has become iconic and synonymous with the transport of bananas around Australia.
48 CATCH OF THE DAILY
Knorr-Bremse’s customers rely on the company to provide an accurate solution for the requirements of HPFV (High Productivity Freight Vehicles) that don’t just tick a box, but actually deliver an accurate Mass Management system.
ContentsISSUE 130
Owning and running a neat little business delivering seafood from Sydney to the Central West of New South Wales, Kent Baldwin talks to PowerTorque’s Paul Matthei.
There has been a lot of hype around electric trucks in the past couple of years and very little activity to aid transport operators preparing to go electric. Elsewhere in the world government subsidies and incentives have driven some strong growth in electric powered trucks.
22 PREPARING TO GO ELECTRIC
43 STRENGTHENING THE LINKS IN THE CHAIN
58 TIME TO SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY
62
A FUTURE-READY MAN
The challenges seem to keep on coming for rural trucking and the Australian Livestock and Rural transporters Association looks at a new threat on the horizon.
Young Driver Award, Vale Fred Borg, Penske’s new location, the Traton Group’s common modular system, the first Iveco S-Way vehicles in Australia, the Livestock Mass, Dimension and Loading Arrangements discussion paper, a new Daimler dealership, the Australian Dangerous Goods Code, Electronic Work Diaries are now available on more devices and much more news from around the trucking world.
According to the Australian Trucking Association, when looking at the drive to limit climate change, now is the time to seize the opportunity and make the transition to zero emissions.
08 NEWS AND VIEWS
Warren Clark, NatRoad CEO, sees the process of moving to zero emissions road transport as being a slow and difficult one for the trucking industry.
Veteran Italian Truck Journalist and Chairman of the International Truck of the Year Jury, Gianenrico Griffini, asks Alexander Vlaskamp, Global MAN CEO, how the German truck manufacturer is changing to meet today’s and tomorrow’s transport needs.
PowerTorque’s European Correspondent, Will Shiers, has been testing a European diesel truck for a change, as he gives us the lowdown on the Mercedes-Benz Actros L, but he reckons the Scania L25b is an
42 A NEW THREAT ON THE HORIZON
64 TESTING EUROPEAN DIESEL AND ELECTRIC TRUCKS
56 IT’S NOT GOING TO BE EASY TO GO GREEN
ISRI: DEALERS ADELAIDE MACKAYDARWINPERTHMELBOURNESYDNEYBRISBANENEWCASTLE/HUNTER VALLEY TAMDELE, 21 Hakkinen Road, Wingfield SA 5013 Ph. 08 8347 1222 email sales@gitsham.com.au web www.gitsham.com.au Mobile Sales and Service Ph. 08 8927 0986 email info@isridarwin.com.au web www.isridarwin.com.au 408 Welshpool Road, Welshpool WA 6106 Ph. 08 9361 7646 email info@mmtisri.com.au web www.mmtisri.com.au 21 Ginger Street, Paget QLD 4740 Ph. 07 4952 1844 email admin@isrimky.com.au web www.isriseatsmackay.com.au 510 Victoria Street, Wetherill Park NSW 2164 Ph. 02 9756 6199 email isri@isri.com.au web www.isri.com.au Unit 1/569 Somerville Rd, Sunshine West VIC, 3020 Ph. 03 9311 5544 email sales@isrisunshine.com.au web www.isri.com.au 3/120 Gardens Drive, Willawong QLD 4110 Ph. 07 3275 2044 email sales@isribrisbane.com.au web www.isribrisbane.com.au Unit 2/13 Hinkler Ave, Rutherford NSW 2320 Ph 02 4932 0600 email sales@hvss.com.au web www.isri.com.au 66
Standard Issue
Iveco is also evaluating collective load measurement and undertaking a full cooling system evaluation and localisation program, to ensure the models are ready to perform in Australian conditions. The focus is on driveline performance, plus a series of suspension and braking tests and evaluation the model’s GPS predictive drive capabilities.
NEWS & VIEWS 8
first Iveco S-Way vehicles in Australia are undergoing a local testing and validation program, ahead of the model’s launch here in the fourth quarter.
The National Transport Commission (NTC) is working with stakeholders to undertake a full review of the Australian Dangerous Goods Code (the code). This will result in an updated version of the code, planned for 2024.
GOODSDANGEROUS
conditions, including during summer temperatures.
POWERTORQUE September/October 2022
YOUNG DRIVER OF THE YEAR FOR 2022
A truck mechanic by trade, James gained solid experience working on both trucks and farm machinery while studying in the Northern Territory (NT) for two years. During his time in the NT James combined his time building cattle yards, transporting cattle and heavy machinery as well as successfully completing a Certificate Ill in JamesAgriculture.startedwith Martins Stock Haulage after obtaining his MC licence in 2019, a role he continues in today.
SAF-Holland has announced a public cash offer to Haldex’s shareholders, which values the company at Haldex at approximately $453 million. SAFHolland has stated that the offer price is the best and final and it will not be increased.Theoffer represents a premium of 46.5 per cent on the current share price. SAF-Holland has already acquired 14.1 per cent of the outstanding shares in Haldex of which 9.2 per cent of the outstanding shares have been acquired from Knorr-Bremse.
Iveco S-Way
As a part of the local validation program, the trucks have been running in single and B-double trailer combinations, as well as in rigid setup, and have covered several hundred thousand kilometres fully loaded and in real-world operating
If you are involved in activities in the dangerous goods transport chain, or if you engage people to do this on your behalf, attend an information session to learn more. The NTC will share details about what could change and the process they’ll follow while reviewing the code.
S-WAY PRE-LAUNCH TESTING
The Livestock, Bulk and Rural Carriers Association conference in Wagga Wagga saw James Papworth named as SafeWork Young Driver of the Year. James, 26, is described as humble and earnest, and is an outstanding young heavy vehicle driver from Holbrook, NSW.
SPECIALISTTOSAF-HOLLANDBUYBRAKE
James Papworth, SafeWork Young Driver of the Year
The modular system has been part of the Scania Truck design philosophy for some time
NEWS & VIEWS
the states are prepared in advance of an Theincursion.planning exercises covered FMD and lumpy skin disease, both of which have been detected on Australia’s northern doorstep. An incursion response is likely to include:
· a movement permit system,
· destruction of affected livestock,
· decontamination or disposal of affected items,
· tracing and surveillance,
· vaccines,
· relief and recovery programs; and
FOOT AND MOUTH ON OUR DOORSTEP
According to research conducted for NatRoad, 81 per cent of Australians say truck drivers are considerate and drive well around other road users,. Conversely, NatRoad also reports that almost four-in-ten say they can recall an incident in the last month involving a truckie driving poorly.
· a national livestock standstill,
· a public information campaign.
· rapid assessment and confirmation of cases,
“Awareness and good behaviour on the road by Australians towards trucks is well understood, if not always practised,” said NatRoad Chairman, Scott Davidson.
· industry engagement,
· recall of affected products,
THE LIKEPUBLICTRUCKIES
The Traton Group is going to be gradually introducing a common modular system for trucks and buses for all its brands. The modular system has been part of the Scania Truck design philosophy for some time, and is now being developed across all of the Traton brands, including Scania, MAN, Volkswagen Truck & Bus and Navistar. They will all be based on the modular system. The new system enables the efficient and cross-brand development, procurement, production and simple integration of various vehicle components into the respective models of the brands via standardised group interfaces.Theaim is for all Traton brands to use more common components and parts, mainly within the powertrain, cab, software platforms, and chassis.
The survey found 96 per cent of Australian drivers feel they drive well around trucks, but this drops to 48 percent when they are asked about otherStollzNowpeople.Research canvassed an online panel of 1000 people aged 18 and above. The research reflects overwhelming support for driver education and licence testing having a greater focus on truck awareness.
· declarations of affected and control areas,
9www.powertorque.com.au
TRUCKSBUILDINGSYSTEMMODULARFOR
An outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) would have potentially catastrophic consequences for Australian livestock industries and rural carriers. This week, Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters Association Executive Member (and LRTAQ member), Athol Carter, and ALRTA Executive Director, Mat Munro, participated in planning exercises in Canberra to ensure that Australia and
The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) has released a livestock mass, dimension and loading arrangements discussion paper which provides the first stage of its review of state-based heavy vehicle livestock loading arrangements.Thelivestock industry is subject to a variety of national, state and territory transport and nontransport laws, including laws around fatigue, vehicle standards, vehicle speed limits and licensing, in addition to animal welfare.
assessment bays and an external hardstand for 126 trucks.
It is the first all-new dealership constructed by Velocity Vehicle Group, which joined the Daimler Truck network in 2021.
ocity Vehicle Group’s new dealership is a 9500-square-metre facility located on a parcel of land on the Ipswich Motor Way, Darra, with a 36-bay workshop, two 29 metre B-double pits, a shaker and roller tester, three wash bays, three express
NEEDEDFEEDBACKINDUSTRY
Velocity Vehicle Group’s new dealership
“The new facility has already provided greater opportunities to service our customers with more bays and expanded parts storage and we feel fortunate with the timing as our old location was under underwater earlier in the year,” said Richard Higgins, Velocity Vehicle Group Australia Executive Vice President.
NEW QUEENSLAND DAIMLER DEALERSHIP
Daimler Truck Australia Pacific and Velocity Vehicle Group have officially opened its new Daimler Trucks Brisbane dealership. It was constructed at a cost of more than $35 million and will sell and support Mercedes-Benz Trucks, Freightliner and Fuso brands.
The discussion paper provides an opportunity for industry, government and other interested stakeholders to provide their feedback on current livestock arrangements and what options are available for reforming livestock transport access.
NEWS & VIEWS
The facility will have 450 m2 of office space, a 2,650 m2 workshop, and a 250 m2 warehouse.
Shepparton in the late eighties who began the organisation known as the National Transport Federation (NTF). The NTF quickly became a fiery national association and represented the interests of the smaller operators, which were growing fast at that time, and were under pressure from large national operators, unions and regulators.Laterthe
Penske Australia has opened the doors at a new location, its second Brisbane branch, located at Lytton, adjacent to the Port of Brisbane and Brisbane Airport operations. The new Lytton branch represents the Western Star Trucks, MAN Truck & Bus, Dennis Eagle, Detroit, and Allison Transmission brands.
branch,” said John Delany, general manager – eastern region, Penske Australia. “It was quickly evident that Lytton was an ideal location to bookend Brisbane and extend our coverage of customers in the north and east.”
NTF joined with other trucking industry associations around the country to create, what would become, the Australian Trucking Association. Then in the mid-nineties the NTF became a part of the organisation now known as NatRoad. Fred passed away on 23 May 2022.
“Our growing customer base in south-east Queensland gave us an opportunity to explore locations for a second facility in addition to our current Wacol
NEWS & VIEWS
NEW BRANCH FOR PENSKE
The facility will have 450 m2 of office space, a 2,650 m2 workshop, and a 250 m2 warehouse across the 11,100 m2 site. The facility includes 19 workshop bays, an overhead crane gantry, and a brake and suspension tester.
HVIA President John Drake said the addition of Lee and Smedley is in keeping with executive level appointments that continue to strengthen the organisation.
NTI ASSIST SEA ELECTRIC NEW BOARD MEMBERS
“Craig and Robert are two very impressive leaders from different parts of our industry,” said Drake. “The industry is faced with a complex range of challenges, from the supply chain to skills shortages; our journey towards zero emissions against a backdrop of rising energy costs, and inflation that is affecting every business and every household.”
POWERTORQUE September/October 2022
Craig Lee, Executive General Manager On Highway Penske Australia
The strategic partnership between Australia’s leading specialist insurer NTI and Australian EV truck manufacturer SEA Electric has strengthened, with NTI’s Truck Assist Roadside assistance service complemented by the company managing a 24/7 call centre for the OEM, while also offering insurance options for operators in the EV space.
NatRoad CEO Warren Clark said the profit margin of member road transport companies was about 2.5 per “Operatorscent. are struggling under sky-high fuel prices and other pressures and this will hit many of them hard,” said Warren. “This underlines the importance of the new Federal Government moving quickly to reform the industry, particularly unfair contract terms.”
Robert Smedley, Managing Director Smedley’s Engineers,
The Heavy Vehicle Industry Association (HVIA) has appointed Penske’s Craig Lee and leading engineering consultant Robert Smedley to fill vacancies on its Board of Management.
The decision to increase wages by 4.6 per cent or $40.00 per week for some award-based occupations means that some road transport operators will struggle to meet these new labour costs, says the National Road Transport Association (NatRoad).
NEWS & VIEWS 12
“By manufacturing the world’s first true range of electric trucks in Melbourne, and supporting them via an extensive nationwide sales and
Metropolitan dealer of the year was awarded to Volvo Commercial Vehicles (VCV) Brisbane South.
“We have approved the Hubfleet EWD software for use on any mobile electronic device, so long as that device meets a range of minimum specifications and outputs. Smart eDriver 2.0 by Step Global can also be used on the Apple iPhone 8 and the 6th Generation Apple iPad,” said Andreas Blahous, NHVR’s Fatigue Specialist. “In the past 18 months seven EWD providers have had EWDs approved by the NHVR, ready to be sold commercially and utilised legally by heavy vehicle drivers in place of written work diaries.”
13www.powertorque.com.au
“The calibre of our dealer network is second to none in this country,” said Richard Singer, Vice President, Services and Retail Development Volvo Group Australia.
VOLVO GROUP AWARDS
NEWS & VIEWS IKON LIFTING EQUIPMENT PTY LTD ROTARY LIFT WIRELESS MOBILE COLUMN LIFTS - All steel control cabinet - Simple display for safe easy operation - LockLight™ load saftey system - Cordless remote control - Spring loaded steering / braking system - Hard rubber covered steel wheels - Digital gauges shows vehicle height and weight - Robust network connectivity 6.2 / 7.5 / 8.5 Tonne //CapacitiesIKONLIFTING.COM.AULifting solutions for heavy industries... (03) 9088 6278 sales@ikonlifting.com.au IKON 8.5T FLEX MAX Features: | Nationwide 24/7 service support .. *STOCKED RANGE AVAILABLE:CMYCYMYCMYMCK IKONPCARD-FRONT1.pdf 3 12/05/2021 2:51:16 PM CMYCYMYCMYMCK IKON-card-FRONT.pdf 1 12/05/2021 3:24:48 PM
Services dealer of the year was awarded to VCV Brisbane.
Volvo Group Australia recently held its first face to face dealer awards in three years, hosting an awards night during the 2022 VGA Dealer Conference.Theawards recognise excellence in key areas of both the customer journey and employee engagement. Metropolitan dealer of the year was awarded to Volvo Commercial Vehicles (VCV) Brisbane South, while Regional Dealer of the year was taken away by Truck Centre WA Geraldton.
Electronic Work Diaries (EWDs) are now available on more devices with the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator approving the first ‘device agnostic’ EWD from Hubfleet EWD, and approving Smart eDriver by Step Global for use on specific Apple devices.
AVAILABILITYOFEXTENSIONEWD
The Health Safety and Wellbeing awards were taken out by Western Truck Group (WTG) in the regional category while the metro winner was Truck Centre WA. Volvo Bus Dealer of the year was awarded to CMV Derrimut while WTG Rockhampton was recognised for outstanding customer service. Volvo Financial
POWERTORQUE September/October 2022
14 TRUCK DEVELOPMENT
INTERESTING
The aftermath of the pandemic and the shortages it created, mixed with the high demand for trucks, sees Hino living in interesting times for truck manufacturers.
INTERESTINGTIMES
that we need to put in place because the business environment will turn back in the other“Whateverdirection.comes our way over the next few years, we have a lot of longstanding dealership partners across the country. So, we’re in a really strong position from a fundamental relationship with our network, and then on into our customers. That’s one of the things that I’ve noticed since I’ve been with the business for the last six months, the level of loyalty and support we have from a lot of our customers, that have been with us for a long time.
DEVELOPING THE RANGE
e level of uncertainty the trucking world has had to live with for the past few years is continuing as the economy comes to a number of important turning points. The pandemic firstly ran roughshod over supply chains as the disruption worked its way around the world, and up and down
HINO LIVING IN
These prevailing conditions are going to make forward planning and future development difficult to judge. Timelines grow for delivery and customers are crying out for freight vehicles now.
Instead of flatlining, economies have kept going strongly, but the ruptured supply chains are hampering any real growth. At the same time the ability of truck manufacturers to get trucks into the country, or out of assembly plants has been very difficult. As specific components are available in limited numbers, at the same time demand from customers for vehicles
There is little sign of a decrease in demand in the future with businesses looking to
“It’s never a dull moment, and that’s certainly been that case over the last six months, a unique set of market circumstances and factors are at play, and it changes weekly, if not daily, in terms of the things that we’re needing to deal with, in terms of the business environment. Some of them are external, some of them are internal. But ultimately, they’re all changeable, and interchangeable, as we go forward into the rest of this year and into 2023.”All of the truck manufacturers are trying to cope with inbound shipping challenges. Everyone has component suppliers out of China. On top of those issues, the body building industry is flooded with orders and waiting lists get longer weekly. Hino is intent on beefing up its ‘Built to Go’ capacity, providing an opportunity to supply trucks ready to go, virtually, off the boat, over the next six to 12 months.
“There’s literally no time to relax even though the market circumstances have provided us with a unique business environment with enquiry and orders outstripping our ability to supply,” says Richard Emery, Hino Vice President-Brand & Franchise Development. “The bottom line is, for a business like ours, it’s a good time for us to remind ourselves of the sort of business and sustainable business habits
This was the topic which began the conversation at a recent presentation by Hino at the start of a countrywide road show of the Japanese truck maker’s range which is making its way around the country in the
15www.powertorque.com.au TRUCK DEVELOPMENT
16 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 TRUCK DEVELOPMENT 16
about 10 years of development work with Hino in Japan.
the prime examples is the 700 Series 8x4, which fills one of those little niches in the Australian truck market. This segment is difficult because one of the requirements under Australian law, and required in very few countries elsewhere in the world, is for the suspension on the twin steer to be load sharing.
renew their fleets and increase the size of their fleets. It’s not just due to the increasing road freight task, but also around renewing trucks around safety and emissions. This has been intensified with the change of government.Whenlooking at the range of trucks now available from Hino, it is clear that the lessons of the past have been learnt and that the vehicles are much more precisely targeted to the kinds of tasks which Australian truck owners need them to complete.Oneof
“All the 700 Series are Euro 6 and use our DPR, which we’ve been running for more than 10 years in this market, which is well proven with customers. We just simply added SCR on so that it’s a clean and efficient solution. They’re all two pedal Allison transmissions in the nine litres, and the ZF Traxon with the intarder as standard on all the 13 litre models.”
“We also have 700 Series, with 16.5 tonne GVM with the SH and FH models, right up to 72 tonnes in the SS,” says Daniel. “It’s a very wide range. It includes the most comprehensive Hino Smart Safe package. We have the vehicle stability control now on every model, all 700 Series trucks now come standard with the full Smart Safe.
KEEPING TRACK OF THINGS
This requirement is a quirk of the pavement rules for roads in Australia and has long been a awkward hurdle to overcome for global truck manufacturers. The fact of the matter is, that any truck manufacturer that does overcome this hurdle and can supply a twin steer option, which would be able to maximise payload in Australia, has met with considerable success.There’s a lot of work that’s gone into product development at Hino over the past 15 years . Five years ago, Hino started renewing the model range, this was after
“We introduced the fuel efficient A05 engine, so we’ve got a great advantage in this area of the market, in terms of fuel efficiency, which is a super hot topic at the moment. It’s not just using less fuel, but
when we’re burning that fuel, we are putting out less CO2, making sure that the NOx and particulates are as low as possible.”
“Hino connect is part of our Hino Advantage Suite Business Solutions and gives our customers access to vehicle performance and operational data that was launched in August last year with the 700 Series,” says Gus Belanszky, Hino Motor Sales Australia, General Manager-Service and Customer Support. “From January this year, it’s now standard on the 500 Series as well. It is next generation telematics and support. Not only does it provide the key performance data, a customer needs to run their business, but it also provides 24/7 notification of fault codes and an industryfirst case management, directly from our team in the Customer Support Centre in our Sydney office.
The 500 Series trucks are fitted with Allison automatic transmission across a range in a sector of the market where customers are now used to automatic transmission. Truck operators can just put a driver in the truck, they select D for drive and off they go.
“It communicates directly with the driver, via the truck’s multimedia unit, and
Vehicles are much more precisely targeted to the kinds of tasks which Australian truck owners need them to complete.
The change over to the new models began with the introduction of the wide cab back in 2017. Even though it has been here five years, it is still one of the leading models, in terms of technology in this market sector. It bridges the area between the heavy end of medium and the low end of the heavy duty, at 16 to 26 tonnes GVM. Vehicle stability control has been a key selling point for this truck.
“If we start with 300 Series, our smallest vehicle, for a car license up to 8.5 tonne GVM, launched in 2020, this truck set the benchmark for safety, performance, efficiency and comfort,” says Daniel Petrovski, Hino, Product Planning Manager. “With the new models, we added Hino Smart Safe and the hybrid range expansion.
“We’re the only Japanese manufacturer to offer a true automatic transmission. That’s the transmission our customers are chasing. A great example of that our customers such as Woolworths, they love that 300 Series 616. We also have Australia’s most powerful light duty truck. Then we have standard cab, wide cab, our ‘Built to Go’ range and we have the hybrid range with the Euro6 hybrid.“Moving up the range, we introduced the 500 Series with the standard cab, at 11 to 14 tonne GVM in 2019. This is the truck that really started changing us into this next generation of trucks. We introduced the Hino Smart Safe at that time, which gives us our foundation of vehicle stability control, including the Pre Collision System, as well as autonomous emergency braking, and lane departure warning system.
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When the truck detects a severe fault code, the type of code that may put the vehicle into a safety mode, not only is the driver alerted through the instrument panel, but an alert is also delivered straight to the driver through the multimedia unit. Hino Roadside Assist puts the fleet in contact with the nearest Hino dealer to organise an inspection. Once the truck enters a Hino dealership, the Hino Connect team is notified using geofencing technology. They then liaise with the dealer to track and oversee the repair process, while being available to the fleet manager for any questions regarding the repair.
Connect specialist will liaise between the customer, the driver and the dealer to track and oversee the progress of the repair to get the vehicle back on the road quickly.”
Although the hybrid concept has been available from Hino for some time, it has never sold in large numbers. Interest in the technology has increased in the last six months or so, with both fuel prices and the drive to lower carbon emissions creating the conditions for a possible day of the hybrids.“Webelieve we are in a unique situation, with a unique set of market circumstances around our hybrid products,” says Richard.
“Theydrivers.can monitor and track vehicle performance information, including fuel usage and fuel forecasting, live GPS tracking and detailed trip reports. This allows fleets to update their customers on accurate delivery times, while also identifying inefficient routes. For increased fleet security, there are useful tools such as movement without ignition alerts, or geofencing ensuring operators are notified if a vehicle enters or leaves a designated area.“The system provides visibility of the active safety system with Pre Collision system alerts allowing fleet operators to manage safe driving techniques. Hino Connect proactively monitors maintenance reminders, so customers can schedule ahead and minimise downtime. All of this information is available in real time through the Hino Connect portal.”
18 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 TRUCK DEVELOPMENT 18
“We’ve partnered with Directed Electronics who build the hardware and firmware to suit our local conditions. These guys have the expertise and the capability to deliver the right solution for the Australian market, but it also gives us the
THE DAY OF THE HYBRIDS
“Hinohere.hasenvironmental challenges
delivers comprehensive levels of data to our customers through an online portal and app. Hino Connect has two key features, the first one being business intelligence, and this is what I call your traditional telematics functions, that puts real time performance data at the customer’s fingertips and gives them full visibility of their vehicles. They can see driver behaviour measurements such as harsh braking acceleration, over revving and speeding, allowing them to address the topic of driving techniques with their
“We’ve had 300 Series hybrid in the marketplace for over a decade. Although we have been selling in certain volumes, our sister company, Toyota has created a persona of the hybrid car company in Australia, we haven’t been able to establish the same view in the truck business. It’s a different set of circumstances, but we happen to believe that the environment is ripe for us to establish ourselves from a hybrid perspective, because we have a unique opportunity and a unique product offering
“The second key feature, of Hino Connect, and the one that really sets us apart from the competition is the remote diagnostics and enhanced care,” says Gus. “In the event of a severe fault, an alert and remedy is delivered straight to the driver through the multimedia unit, with a call to action. We also send an email to the fleet manager and our support centre. The unique feature of Hino Connect is the case management and the support provided by our team in our Sydney office. This level of enhanced care means that the Hino
“Another feature that we can offer our customers is an API or an application programming interface data feed,” says Gus. “That’s useful for our multi brand fleets, and allows them to plug the data from the Hino Connect module straight into their own third party, fleet management or telematics system. Hino Connect has been developed specifically for Australia with the support of the engineers from Hino Japan.
When fleet managers look at the portal, they can see performance dashboards, asset trails, map views, reports, and even an advanced analytics tab that allows customers to drill down into cause and effect of driving performance, safety, and vehicle utilisation. Hino have also developed a fleet manager app that brings some of the some of these key measurement measurements directly to the customer’s mobile phones.
flexibility to adapt the system for the future needs of our customers. The solution is plug and play system. And it’s integrated into the vehicles using the factory connection points. A modified version of Hino Connect featuring the business intelligence elements is also available as an accessory for our 300 Series customers.”
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Hybrid is going to get additional investment to improve performance and Hino in Australia is expecting a two per cent improvement year on year, in terms of hybrid efficiency. The business thinks this will offer lower carbon emission options to customers in advance of any significant shift in CO2 levels in the generation of power, which the company expects to appear after 2030. Hino reckon the crossover point in terms of the overall CO2 generation between pure electric versus a hybrid truck is probably not going to occur until the late 2030s. This leaves a window of opportunity for hybrid until that point is reached.
their fleets and we did a trial on a route in Sydney, a daily delivery environment stop and start metropolitan, back-to-back with a diesel product, identical trucks other than the drive system. We were able to achieve up to a 22 per cent reduction in fuel use and CO2 emissions. With 22 per cent better fuel efficiency and a 50 per cent idling time reduction, on a typical truck, that means up to 5.1 tonnes less CO2 per year per truck, less emissions than a diesel alternative, doing the same route and doing the same sort of “Wework.canthen reflect that in the total cost of ownership, because there’s other things at play here. Higher uptime, because you’re not recharging, you’ve got lower maintenance, in terms of electric motor replacements or diesel engine, starter motor and alternator, and the regenerative braking saves the brake pads, as well. Lower emissions and lower fuel consumption saves money. What we’ve seen in the last year and a half is an improving resale value on hybrids, it’s now seen as a viable option as a resale, and particularly over the last six months.
“But realistically, we see a hybrid sweet spot, in terms of its commercial and practical use in the current fleet across Australia. We think it’s starting now. We’d like to take advantage of that. Whether it will last beyond 2030 is hard to know because we can’t tell how quickly battery technology will improve, the infrastructure improves or how the generation of electricity, in terms of CO2 levels, improves. We believe this hybrid sweet spot has at least the next five years and we’d like to take full advantage of that.”
“We probably underplayed hybrid here and not been forceful enough around our hybrid. We want to now start doing that over the next year. It’s very much a truck for today, and we’ve now been able to back it up with some proof of our on-road improvements around efficiency, and therefore greenhouse emissions.”
20 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 TRUCK DEVELOPMENT
“We’ve been doing some homework on our existing hybrid product,” says Richard. “We have quite a number of them in a number of large fleets. Some of our customers have inserted hybrids into
of years and from 2025 onwards in terms of people being early adopters in that space.
“We just think there’s an opportunity here that hybrid may be the truck for its time,” says Richard. “When you consider the marketplace and the vehicle adoption here will see some battery electric early adoption from some fleets. We see that certainly kicking off over the next couple
through to 2050, which have many elements and there’s a whole range of actions and activities that we will undertake. we will drive environmental outcomes and emissions in the product offering, whether it be further improvements in diesel technology, whether it be hybrid, whether it be battery electric, whether it be fuel cell. All of those things are in play in our R&D environment. Whether there are various technologies that will emerge over the next period of time or whether it’s getting the most out of existing technologies and existing power trains.”
When looking at the range of trucks now available from Hino, it is clear that the lessons of the past have been learnt
Hino currently have hybrid available now, but Richard describes it as being in a twilight zone, with lots of rhetoric around the movement to electric vehicles. However, there are also limitations in terms of the practicality and the usage of battery electric at the moment, including a lack of charging infrastructure. Hino see this as an opportunity for hybrid to gain some traction, as truck users grapple with the lack of infrastructure, the weight of batteries and limited range. At the same time the pressure is on from large corporate customer to offer lower carbon options.
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22 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 OPERATOR PROFILE
ICONIC AND SYNONYMOUS WITH THE TRANSPORT OF BANANAS
23www.powertorque.com.au OPERATOR PROFILE
Although the company’s head office remains in Tully, its largest depot is its presence in Brisbane, which serves as a distribution hub for all of the loads coming back into Queensland, from all over Australia. The company runs a shuttle on the route between Brisbane and North Queensland, with one driver heading from Brisbane to Mackay and another driver taking over to bring the truck from Mackay into Townsville. From there a local North Queensland driver will take it onwards to his delivery point in the north, where it will reload with fresh produce for the journey back south again.
lenners Transport was started by Les Blennerhassett back in 1988. He was a banana farmer who wanted to get his bananas to market, and started off by delivering his own, as well as the bananas of some of his neighbours to delivery points around Australia.Overtime, this grew to a business with several trucks and was delivering the bananas for a number of banana farmers in the Tully area. This operation has
“We were just looking after all of our customers down there because we didn’t want them to go elsewhere,” says Cassidy Waina, Blenners Fleet Technical Manager. “We just looked after them, and it paid off.”
B
whole system had been adapted so that it was no longer totally dependent on the movement of bananas.
cyclones, just about all of the trucks leaving the Blenners yard in Tully were empty when
The cycle will see freight coming into the Brisbane depot from Western Australia and the southern states. From there it will travel up into North Queensland for delivery, into places like Cairns and
The fleet still moves predominantly bananas, but then there’s avocados and mangoes when they’re in season. That’s just about all that comes out of North Queensland, but blueberries and other specialist fruit sometimes make an appearance, too. These are transported to all of the southern markets, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane.
Peter Morris, Blenners Fleet Maintenance Manager and Cassidy Waina, Blenners Fleet Technical Manager.
coming out of North Queensland.
On any highway in Australia, you will spot the distinctive white trailers and white trucks with the Blenners logo emblazoned in yellow on the trailer and on the truck, the fleet, has become iconic and synonymous with the transport of bananas around Australia.
When that happened, the Blenners operation decided it needed to ensure its survival by continuing to service its customers across Australia, even if the trucks were unable to deliver bananas.
24 OPERATOR PROFILE 24
From the workshop’s point of view the K200 proves to be easier to work on and they are finding them more reliable.
Many of the trucks in the fleet have been fitted with the Guardian fatigue monitoring system.“Some drivers don’t like them and some like them, because they know the benefits and if they start to nod off, they will get an alarm,” says Cassidy. “It even lets them know, when they are yawning. you are guaranteed it has solved many rollovers.
The maintenance team comprises 55 people. This includes the wash bay, tyre maintenance, spare parts and workshop and a full-time trainer. Overall, over 100
T350 rigids used on local collection and distribution.“We’vegot 185 Kenworths, in total, that’s including the local fleet, there is also one Western Star and a Mercedes Benz Actros for some variety,” says Cassidy. “There are 22 road train prime movers hauling road trains and AB-triples. There are 85 trucks pulling B-doubles and serving the southern markets from North Queensland. There are also 42 rigids, plus about 70 forklifts.”Amajority of the prime movers in the fleet are Kenworths, K200s and T610s. The road trains prime movers are Kenworth T659 or T610SAR models
In terms of prime movers, the trucks are either rated at 600hp and 2050 ft lb of torque for road train work. While the B-double and single trailer prime movers are rated at 550hp and 1850 ft lb of torque. Also in the fleet is a number of Isuzu rigids some 6x4, with more now at 8x4. These trucks are responsible for local deliveries and bringing produce
average age of drivers is now over 50. Not many of the drivers are based out of Tully with the majority based out of Brisbane and Townsville.
A TRADITIONAL FLEET
“It just gives your drivers a bit of variety, some of them really like the K200, which is probably the better truck for a B-double fleet,” says Cassidy.
MAINTAINING THE FLEET
The driver shortage has seen Blenners look to improve driver comfort, fitting microwaves and inverters to all of its new trucks. The
“Fatigue related accidents definitely dropped off. We have some delay on the business being notified from a fatigue event in a remote area, but the drivers are alerted straight away, and they are back awake. Then, it’s a couple of minutes, and then we’re ringing them.”
There are eight depots in Queensland: Brisbane, Rockhampton, a brand new depot in Mackay, Townsville, Tully, Innisfail, Cairns and Mareeba.
“We’ve got a lot of top end drivers that will load the truck tout of Mareeba, and run it back into Townsville,” says Cassidy. “They leave the truck there then a new driver will jump in from Townsville and carry on to run interstate.
Peter Morris, Blenners Fleet Maintenance Manager now has the task of maintaining the fleet from its main workshop at the Tully head office. Peter started with Blenners in October 2010. On the floor, as a general mechanic, he moved up to foreman, then night shift foreman and from light vehicle mechanic to heavy commercial vehicle mechanic. Later he was managing parts for four years. Before entering the role as Fleet Technical Manager.
26 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 OPERATOR PROFILE 26
“We’ve got a lot of top-end drivers that will load the truck tout of Mareeba, and run it back into Townsville,” says Cassidy. “They leave the truck there then a new driver will jump in from Townsville and carry on to run interstate.“Wetry to have one driver one truck for all of our line haul fleet, but we’ve got shuttles, that do overnight out of Brisbane. They go from Brisbane to Mackay, and then another driver will jump in to change over. Making it an overnight run. We’ve got 15 trucks doing that all the time. For the rest of the line whole fleet, there’s always one driver in it, it’s ideal.”
Tully, before heading back to the southern markets.Coming north, the trucks backload a wider variety of freight with carrots or avocados, plus some seafood, coming out of Perth. However, a lot of trucks out of Perth come across the Nullarbor empty to Adelaide, where there are also carrots, but also a lot of dry goods like wine.
“It just gives your drivers a bit of variety, some of them really like the K200, which is probably the better truck for a B-double fleet,” says Cassidy. “We can utilise them a bit better. A lot of the drivers think the T610 is more comfortable and drives more smoothly.
Goods coming out of Melbourne heading north are all frozen goods, normally around five trucks a day, mainly B-doubles. There is a lot of general dry freight coming north to Brisbane from all overFreightAustralia.heading north out of Brisbane to North Queensland includes a lot of frozen goods, for customers like McCain Foods and Peters Ice Cream, plus other general freight for a wide variety of customers who are supplying the north of the state out of South-East Queensland.
From the workshop’s point of view the K200 proves to be easier to work on and they are finding them more reliable as well. The fact that it is possible to fit a bull bar on the K200 pulling a B-double also means the trucks suffer less damage. The length rules preclude fitting them on the T610, making the radiators more vulnerable.
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“If we’re sure there’s nothing wrong with the truck, then we talk to the driver, and then we normally notice a big difference in the results.”
LOOKING FOR RESILIENCE
Cassidy was Fleet Maintenance Manager at the time, and then the pair decided to have a role swap. Peter moved into the Fleet Maintenance Manager role and Cassidy stepped into the Fleet Technical Manager position.
28 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 OPERATOR PROFILE
EGR, which would have lasted four or five years, according to Cassidy.
people work in the Tully facility, which also serves as the head office of the business. The Brisbane facility is a major depot and employs more people.
“Normallyfloorwhat happens is a brand new fleet truck will go into the line haul application, and then at about 1.4 million kilometres, we will do a full rebuild on that engine, and then put it into our local fleet,” says Peter. “When it goes local, then we’ll get rid of one of the local trucks. All up a truck is likely to spend seven or eight years in the fleet.
Cassidy’s role sees him looking after all the fleet on the road, the technical side of things. Meanwhile, Peter looks after the workshop, the technicians and staff issues. The workshop foreman organises things down on the ground, on the workshop
“On fuel, we get a report every Monday about what we are chewing through, and then we identify issues, based off what that report shows,” says Peter. “We decide whether we’ve got to do a fuel check on that truck. Is it the driver, or is it mechanical?“Wedoour checks, we will plug the computer in and work it out. We’ll check load percentages and all the rest of it. We will look for boost leaks, and things like wastegate measurements.
The fleet currently has one truck in the fleet running with the Eaton and Cummins Adept system, with the engine control systems fully integrated with the UltraShift control systems.
“We’ve got a driver in that auto we’ve got now and we’ve just done training with him to learn how to drive it through Paccar,” says Peter. “We’ll get Paccar to train our team on how to drive it, so we can get the most out of it.”
Experience with the Cummins E5 engine, has seen the operation get a longer life out of them, as opposed to the
In recent years the team at Blenners have been looking at drive axle specification and have settled on a choice which seems to be working well for this hard-working fleet.
“We will do piston liners, bearings, heads and put it in the local fleet, and then, it will pretty much get another probably 6-700,000km. So, it will be probably around the two million kilometres when we get rid of it.”
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“To be honest, my opinion on Kenworth is I don’t want anything to improve, especially with the T659 and K200s,” says Cassidy. “Where they’ve got them now is really good. Obviously, it’s going to change because everything’s changing, the technology is changing as they make them more driver friendly.
“The problem with drive axles which are most common are around oil leaks, sometimes around pinion seals, shaft seals. We do get good warranty and support, so are we pretty much covered, and we do get them replaced. In the past we had a lot more problems.”
“For me, don’t change a thing, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. They’re a reliable truck and you can get them going anywhere. We used to have a lot of seal leaks and just little problems with the steps, but we go back to Kenworth, with all of this feedback and they fix it for
30 POWERTORQUE September/October 202230 OPERATOR PROFILE
The difficulty in finding suitable personnel is affecting many businesses across the country but does become more acute in the more far flung regional areas. The sheer distance to Far North Queensland has been of benefit to the Blenners operation as it has developed a well tuned, but tailor-made system to handle freight.
However, that sheer distance also means it is a long way away from large centres of population and their pool of potential employees.“We’relooking into a rostered day off (RDO) system at the moment, because people want a bit of lifestyle,” says Peter. “So, we’re looking at that doing, a rostered day off every six weeks or so. We haven’t implemented that yet, but we’re looking at other other ways as well.”
THE LAW OF ATTRACTION
“We’ll obviously see how these new onesHandlinggo.” this kind of major rebuilding
“There’saxles. an upgraded diff and it has got the upgraded bearings and there is an upgraded bolt for the crown wheel,” says Peter. “Pinion bearings have been upgraded in the front diff carrier and tight fit crown wheel bolts on both diff carriers.
“Athere.”our major depot in Brisbane, we’ve actually extended the workshop down there, because we’re struggling here.nBut they still find it difficult to find the people down there also. We’re even attending career days and advertise all the apprenticeships through the schools just trying to attract some people.”
of trucks requires the right skill levels in technicians. However, as with the driver shortage, the shortage of technicians is also a limiting factor.
“We’re probably five technicians down,” says Peter. “So, we even advertise for light vehicle mechanics, mechanical fitters that want to upgrade their skills and go to heavy commercial. So, we’ve offered that and we’ve got three on the floor that are doing a Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) process at the“Wemoment.didget four apprentices at the start of this year, and only two worked out. They’ve come to us saying ‘it’s not for me’. We even get work experience people, who come and they won’t even do half a day, when they’re supposed to do a three day trial
The resilience which has been developed in the Blenners operation from the tyranny of distance and the fierceness of the weather is now needed to find a solution to these ongoing labour and skills shortages.
“We’veus.got a few Kenworth T350s. Probably, 15 years old we’ve done something new with those, because we can’t buy them anymore. They’ve got Caterpillar C12 engines in them, so what we’ve done is we’ve pulled the engines out, pulled out the transmissions and done a full rebuild on the engines, recon transmission and a full respray. It’s pretty much like a brand new truck. We’ve done that to about four or five trucks.
The drive axles now being fitted to the Blenners fleet are the Meritor MT21 65GP. They have no diff locks, vocational drive
A yard tug with a magnet hanging off a the bull bar on the front of the truck. The bar just swings quite close to the ground and there are small wheels on the end to stop it’s actually hitting the ground. As the magnet sweeps over the ground it picks up all the metal odds and ends in the yard, like nails and screws and washers and all the detritus which up on the ground, which gets embedded in tyres and creates problems. When the driver arrives in the morning they have got to clean it off and it is ready to go again. Blenners buy these long magnets and they mount the whole thing on an old back bar from one of the fridges trailers.
Blenners are experimenting with two Tri Quad B-double in the fleet.
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PREPARING TO
There has been a lot of hype around electric trucks in the past couple of years and very little activity to aid transport operators preparing to go electric. Elsewhere in the world government subsidies and incentives have driven some strong growth in electric powered trucks.
ELECTRICGO
32 ALT-POWER POWERTORQUE September/October 2022
Bill Gillespie, SEA Electric President, Asia Pacific Region.
ELECTRIC
ere in Australia, not only do we have no incentives to go electric, but we also have minimal charging infrastructure which would be useful to the road transport industry. What we have seen is larger companies, local authorities and multinationals dipping a toe in the water of electric trucks around the metropolitan areas.“Decarbonising the transport sector in Australia, which makes up 19 per cent of Australia’s total emissions is essential if we’re going to meet collective and national goals and net zero emissions by 2050,” says Bill Gillespie, SEA Electric President, Asia Pacific Region.
Going forward over the next ten years the speed of uptake of electric trucks is unpredictable. Although there are no government incentives on the immediate
The SEA Electric brand has been with us for a few years now and has established a manufacturing facility in South Dandenong, Victoria, where imported Hino unpowered trucks are fitted with the SEA driveline for sale in our market.
H
“I think with the weight of environmental, social, corporate governance side of companies now means that, whether the government steps up or not, companies will have to be better with emissions and carbon output,” says Bill. “So, I think the sector will grow even without government support, but it would be a lot faster with government support.
“With a market of the size of light and medium-duty trucks, which is about 21,000 units a year, if Australia is going to make its 2030 commitment, half of those trucks will have to be EV, zero-emissions trucks. If by 2030, 10,000 per year are not being sold as EVs, the country won’t be a chance of making its targets.
SEA Electric says it plans to be a major contributor to the reduction of carbon output in Australia and globally. Over the last two years COVID-19 has changed the way that Australians purchase goods with ecommerce growing 57 per cent in two years, according to the recent ATA and Electric Vehicle Council Report.
34 ALT-POWER POWERTORQUE September/October 2022
horizon, SEA are preparing for a quickening of the pace of demand.
As the economy transitions across to thinking about living with the new global paradigm, as pressure to reduce carbon ramps up, product shipping, the thirdparty emissions and the emissions that a company creates, just by shipping their own goods will be a potential carbon footprint
hotspot.“IKEA
has a goal becoming climate positive by 2030,” says Bill. “The goal is by 2025, all customer deliveries, and services across 30 markets will use electric vehicles, or other zero emission solutions. Electric vehicles are used in 19 countries and the group wants it to go even faster. The deadline has been brought forward, and 100 per cent of IKEA deliveries in this market will be emission free as soon as 2025.“That transformation will not happen by simply replacing combustion engine with electric engines, while everything else
“The pressure will be on everyone such that the market will grow. We will expand our manufacturing presence, but we will also be able to lean on other companies to achieve scale.”
Glen Walker, SEA Electric Vice President, Asia Pacific Region
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36 ALT-POWER POWERTORQUE September/October 2022
For electric truck makers like SEA, there’s a lot more competition coming, from places like China, plus the Fuso eCanter and the Volvo Electric Range, here in Australia. Customers are now getting a wider choice when they start to think about an electric
There is no transmission between the motor and the differential
pivot in every market depending on their needs. It can sell the actual power system or customers can buy the kit and install them, or SEA can supply fully built up trucks.
truck.What
SEA is a growing business and has opened a new office in London recently to handle potential European business. It’s already operating in the North American market which is a more mature electric market and supported by the US Federal Government. Joe Biden has set a goal of 50 per cent electric vehicle sales by 2030 as part of a broader effort to become zero emissions economy wide by 2050.
stays the same. This transition will require challenging our current ways of working and finding service partners who want to join us on that journey. SEA Electric is one of those service partners along with their logistics partners. We’ve got three trucks in operation with IKEA. I think collectively they’ve done 300,000 kilometres now over about three years.”
SEA are also working on becoming an electric powertrain provider in several marketplaces. The company reckons it can
best EV trucks in the market. We want to invest in our own people, we want to have great customer solutions, we really need to scale up manufacturing, we would like to double our facility here.
THE AUSTRALIAN MARKET
“Buying an electric truck might seem like a potentially risky purchase,” says Bill. “So everything we’re doing right now
“We’ve got three main areas that we want to focus on,” says Bill. “We do need to focus on product innovation and have the
“We have partnerships in North America, and in Australia, with Hino, in New Zealand, as well. Then in Europe, we’ve got some other partnerships going on at the OEM level. What we want to do in Australia is focus on light and medium duty trucks here and in Southeast Asia. We do have a trial running with Hino and DHL on an FG size medium duty truck in Thailand in the second half of this year.”
INTERNATIONAL GROWTH
SEA has been developing is a strong knowledge base within its organisation to handle the challenges ahead. It employs mechatronics software engineers, mechanical engineers, here in Australia, designing and building trucks, designed to work in Australia.
“As we go through, we’d like to scale up in other parts as well, meeting the demand. Manufacturing is a big thing for us, we’ve got discussions going on right now, which are advanced with some marketplaces, particularly in Thailand.
SEA bring in semi knocked down kits, from Hino in Japan
is about reducing that perception of risk. We’re all about normalising the experience, we want to show customers, we’re here for them, and want to support the early adopters. There are companies that are adopting early and then there’s companies who say they prefer to wait until they’re more“Wecomfortable.knowthatcompanies want to make that leap, we also know that business is complex. They will transition, this is a threeto-five-to-10-year transition. Our vision is to become the premier global partner in powering commercial electric vehicles, that handle urban delivery and logistics.”
BUILDING TRUCKS
Going forward over the next ten years the speed of uptake of electric trucks is unpredictable.
Hino dealers are gearing up to service SEA Electric trucks purchased by fleets. They are already up to speed on many of the technical aspects of the Hino product being used and are being trained and equipped to get up to speed on the electric componentry.“Dealershave their own service facilities, in the next few months, the
37www.powertorque.com.au ALT-POWER
training will be completed,” says Bill. “They will have separate areas for trucks that have been repatriated back, for any service or delivery work. National Truck Insurance’s mandate is not to work on the trucks at the side of the road; they will pick them up and take them back to the SEA Electric dealer closest to where they collected the vehicle. Then they will be supported by a mixture of SEA Electric and dealer trained personnel.
albeit on a relatively small scale, for now. The process starts with bare chassis rails and then the production line moves through six build stations as it progresses, axles are fitted, electrical components are fitted, then batteries, plus
“We do offer to customers the ability to bring their own workshop teams to our lessons, and train like they do with the other brands. Because it’s a new technology, they need to be able to see how that’s put together. Batteries are covered for five years and need servicing every six months.”
“Everythingcabs.youwould see in a modern global Vehicle Assembly Plant exists in our facility in South Dandenong,” says Glen Walker, SEA Electric Vice President, Asia Pacific Region. “Everything we have been doing is about the legitimacy of the product, the legitimacy of the brand and legitimacy amongst our industry peers.
“There’s a lot of focus on the technology in our product. It usually centres around zero emissions from a CO2 perspective. By focusing on the technology, you ignore the fact that an electric power system is actually a superior power source, when compared with an internal combustion engine. In many applications, it’s quiet, it’s smooth, it’s relaxing, the torque rush is, is invigorating.
SEA bring in semi knocked down kits, from Hino in Japan, there can be two large trucks to one shipping container or four smaller trucks inside. This is truck manufacturing,
So what is the basic driving experience like in the SEA Electric, what’s it like being behind the wheel in an electric truck? PowerTorque took a drive in a selection of models to gauge the differences in the experience behind the wheel of the SEA truck and the diesel models the electric trucks are based on.
as a normal truck, steer axle and drive axle, preserving function of foundation brakes and they’re safely cocooned between two large C section chassis rails for Theprotection.design
“Jet Charge are Australia’s largest hardware installer for charging, and they are a great strategic alignment for us as a business, for our dealers and customers,” says Bill. “Tim Washington and his team are alongside us on this journey.
BEHIND THE WHEEL OF AN ELECTRIC TRUCK
The batteries are mounted in the middle of the chassis. There are three reasons for this, they are close to the roll centre of the vehicle for stability. They approximate the same weight distribution
There are three levels of regeneration. One is when you take your foot off the accelerator, this is the default position on the stalk. Pulling the stalk down activates a more aggressive level of retardation. Touch the brakes and the system goes into an even more aggressive retardation mode, charging the battery at a higher rate. It really is just lightly touching the brake pedal which activates the retardation, the driver can use it like a Someswitch.of the models are speed limited to 90 km/h, which means they are not specifically comparable to their diesel counterparts. However, in the kinds of applications these truck will be working, it is doubtful there would be many opportunities to get over 90 km/h. “Like any hydrocarbon fuelled motor, electric motors also have rev limits” explains Glen. “The secret to successful electric truck power system design is correctly matching major electrical components, voltage, current, revolutions, and diff ratio to produce the required startability and dynamic performance at the broadest possible operating speed and GVM range. All the while minimising tare and cost whilst maximising range. On some occasions, a compromise is maximum vehicle speed.”
“The key target markets where our trucks are proven and they excel are first mile freight, last mile of freight, urban and regional municipalities and then specific application service vehicles and general freight vehicles. We’ve been busy and specifically focusing on four areas of opportunity in relation to our product. The first rule is, don’t sell vehicle into a job where it’s not suited.
than enough for startability at twin steer 8x4 ratings without the need for a transmission. If a transmission were required, we would more than likely adopt a solution that incorporates a two-speed differential.”Acarbased electric power system uses a high speed, low torque motor. In a truck you have a low speed, high torque motor. The truck motor produces a lot of torque and in the case of the SEA trucks, enough torque to go straight into a diff. The truck has a slow release of battery energy, which means there is low battery stress.
38 ALT-POWER POWERTORQUE September/October 2022
“Our supplier partner for motors has product available now that is rated to 6,200Nm,” says Glen. “This is more
“People ask us how long will or batteries live, and a quick answer to that is the longest life battery we have is well over three years of age, has had 200 full discharge cycles each year, and we still cannot detect any reduction in capacity that battery,” says Glen. “Our system designed for truck is the diesel equivalent of an electric power system, low revving, high torque low energy release.
“There is a whole ecosystem, including Energy Australia, Ampol, Jet Charge, Toyota Finance, and other financiers, will all be partners in how we achieve scale, and new customers will need to tap into that. Some of these arrangements will be contractual, and others will simply be favourable to both parties to just join together to work on the projects.”
First step, use the key to turn it on, put the foot on the brake, turn the key and hold it as if you’re starting a traditional engine. Then let it go, now the screen is on, and the truck is ready to go. There’s a little green box on the screen, which says TheReady.screen shows charge levels in the battery. On this occasion there’s 69 per cent battery and the system tells us it reckons that it is 138 kilometres to empty. The truck is in neutral with the park brake on. When you take the park brake off, the red light will go away. Then the driver simply puts it into Drive, takes the handbrake off, and away you go. Once the truck is in drive, it can’t go directly to reverse, it has to go through neutral as a safety measure. The controls still have the exhaust brake functionality on the steering column stalk. Of course, it isn’t an exhaust brake, but a regenerative charger, which replenishes the battery, while slowing the truck.
“An electric vehicle works very simply. You have a charger taking energy from somewhere, a solar array, or the grid, through a power distribution unit, it sends it to the battery for storage. That battery, when called upon to release its energy does so into the power distribution, and that decides how much goes for power steering, air conditioning and heating, power take-offs, vacuum pumps, etc. It sends the bulk of the energy into a motor controller, which then controls the motor to produce the required amount of torque. What happens from there is physics. It’s exactly the same from that point in our truck, versus an internal combustion engine truck.”
According to SEA, the IKEA vehicles, on a standard day will be fully loaded, perform 11 drops in nine hours and go up to 220km, although it is normally less, and they recharge overnight.
CHARGING UP
layout of the truck includes a sub assembled radiator on the driver’s side and the sub assembled component box on the passenger side. These are pre-assembled away from the production line. There is no transmission between the motor and the diff, which has a slightly shorter diff compared to the diesel truck.
SEA Electric has a non-exclusive relationship with Jet Charge.
When asked whether a transmission will be needed if SEA decide to go into higher GVM trucks, Glen replied that there are no plans to introduce a twospeed transmission, like that used by Volvo in their heavier electric trucks.
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On paper, Australia is well prepared. Governments and livestock industries have signed a cost sharing agreement that maps out responsibilities and includes compensation for losses. An AUSVET FMD national response plan was agreed in 2014. ALRTA is participating in a review of that plan.The AUSVET plan outlines a comprehensive eradication plan, involving:
We were told to get permits but the online system collapsed. Masks and sanitiser were mandated, but there wasn’t any. We were told to get vaccinated but these were stuck off shore. PCR tests were scarce and results took so long to be returned they were no longer valid.
fter three years of pandemics, drought, fires, floods, war, adblue shortages, inflation, fuel excise bungles and skills shortages, our industry needs a new crisis like a hole in the head. But here it is, an uncontrolled outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is rampant in Bali, right on our doorstep.
China, Vietnam and Malaysia for many years, it is largely under control. The situation in Indonesia is entirely different. Reported FMD caseloads are rapidly growing. More than 400,000 cases are known but only 5,000 animals were slaughtered. In Bali alone, there are 600,000 cattle, 700,000 pigs and 50,000 goats. Only 18,000 have been vaccinated.
· Declarations of affected and control areas;
So far, the Australian Government is refusing to close the border, citing biosecurity risk assessments and impacts on two-way trade. Peak farming bodies are backing the position, so it is unlikely to change.Instead, unprecedented powers are being used to mandate disinfecting foot mats and to risk profile all travellers from Bali. There are also more signs, detector dogs, airport staff, social media campaigns and mail inspections. We had better pray it works.Understandably, there is enormous concern within the livestock transport sector. At our National Conference in August 2022, ALRTA and our State Member Associations convened a panel of experts to discuss this critical issue and hear member concerns.Wecontinue to engage with governments at all levels to push for the strongest possible biosecurity protections and best possible preparedness. It’s a fight we cannot afford to lose.
42 RURAL TRUCKING MATTERS
· Decontamination or disposal of affected items;
· A public information campaign.
Just like COVID, we need to buy time. Moreover, we need to stop FMD getting here in the first place. Underscoring the risks we are facing, FMD virus fragments were recently discovered in commercially imported meat products and in goods not declared by an international passenger. Thankfully, the virus was not live and Australia remains FMD free.
Complicating matters enormously is the fact that most owners have just a few animals. Common people don’t trust banks and keep their wealth in livestock. The Indonesian Government is offering just a fraction of market value as compensation for voluntary slaughter. Would you report FMD if it meant losing half of your superannuation?WhenCOVID hit we closed our borders overnight. Many in our industry are asking why we are not doing the same with the Indonesian border, at least until their FMD outbreak is under control.
· Tracing and surveillance;
· Relief and recovery programs; and
But for how long?
A
remember how state and territory Chief Health Officers took over during COVID? We had an agreed national freight movement protocol, but as with all battle plans, it didn’t survive first engagement.
FMD is one of the world’s most contagious animal diseases. It affects cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, water buffalo and deer. It can spread via inhalation, ingestion or breeding. It survives on surfaces (including carcasses, hides, skin, wool, clothing, boots, equipment and vehicles) and in water (including milk, semen and effluent), persisting in the environment for up to 345 days.The disease does not affect humans. And while processed meat, milk and hides present no public health risk, an outbreak would immediately close export markets. A national FMD outbreak would cost up to $80b. Recovery could take decades. Statisticians and epidemiologists estimate an 11 per cent chance of an outbreak in the next five years.
· Recall of affected products;
· Industry engagement;
· A livestock movement permit system;
A NEW THREAT ON THE HORIZON
· A rapid vaccine program;
The challenges seem to keep on coming for rural trucking and the Australian Livestock and Rural transporters Association looks at a new threat on the horizon.
· A 72hr national livestock standstill;
It will be little different with FMD. As soon as the button is pushed, Chief Veterinary Officers will take over. They’ll have sweeping powers to lock us down, prevent movements and vaccinate or destroy livestock. Think apocalypse. Think confusion. Think livelihoods lost overnight. Think piles and piles of burning dead animals.Jurisdictions are woefully underprepared and under-resourced to put the response plan into action. Permit systems are not ready. Our FMD vaccine bank is held overseas. We have few truck washes or effluent disposal facilities, let alone access to disinfectants. If it happened tomorrow, and it might, it would be a disaster.
Although FMD has been present in
· Rapid assessment and confirmation of cases;
Sounds pretty good, right? Actually, probably not. Like all such complex emergency responses, the devil will be in the detail, COVID is a perfect and timely example.Doyou
· Destruction of affected livestock;
POWERTORQUE September/October 2022
“The bigger the trucks we have, the less pollution we create, and the fewer drivers that we need. We have worked well with the government, we’ve been able to get an alternative to the Intelligent Access Program. We’ve also achieved an outcome for the first and last mile with the introduction of New South Wales Farm Gate Access Network.
“It’s fair to say we’ve come a long way in the past decade, but we still have much more to do, that is why this year’s conference is talking about cutting red tape to enable the shortage of drivers to be addressed to enable long-standing heavy vehicle access constraints to be removed and to ensure driver mental health, wellbeing and safety is paramount.”
One of the big topics discussed at the LBRCA Conference was Chain of Responsibility and how it affects the rural transport industry, not just in New South Wales, but nationally
“It’s a great thing for the rural sector and what it does is it keeps our costs down,” said Paul Pulver, LBRCA President.
A
NSW is undergoing some changes to which the LBRCA will need to adapt and one of the big topics is the transition of enforcement activities in NSW, to the
National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR). One of the areas in which the NHVR has been working to increase its credibility with the industry is in the field of Chain of Responsibility (CoR).
www.powertorque.com.au 43 RURAL TRUCKING MATTERS
THESTRENGTHENINGLINKS IN THE CHAIN
“The background grounding principle of CoR is it’s really aimed at any party, which can control influence or encourage on-road behaviour. Those parties are identified and held accountable. So, in theory, we can move away from the driver, up the enforcement chain to the responsible party.
t its formation back in 1987, the Livestock and Bulk Carriers Association of NSW began representing the interests of the livestock industry in the state. Since then, bulk carriers and general carriers in rural areas have come onboard. After all of these years, the fight for safe roads, fairer loads and less red tape for rural carriers continues.Alothas changed in the intervening 35 years as the LBRCA has developed an improved relationship with the road authorities and local government. The fact is that the industry has road train access along the full length of the Newell Highway, as well as similar access into the main sites the industry services, the large abattoirs, the major sale yards.
“Is there really a chain responsibility in rural trucking?” is the question asked by Mathew Munro, the Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters Association Executive Director speaking to the conference.
“There is a simple answer, and that is, we do have chain responsibility law, and yes, that does apply to rural trucking, but there’s something hidden in there that it doesn’t work in reality.
“I looked at some of the data that’s available at the moment, and I found 59 published court outcomes, 14 enforceable undertakings, seven supervisory intervention orders, and I’m aware that there are 21 primary duties matters before the courts at the moment,” said Mat.
RURAL TRUCKING MATTERS
industry relies on vendor declarations, which are created by an organisation called SafeMeat which says it, “is dedicated to promoting Australia’s best practice management systems that ensure when customers purchase red meat or livestock from Australia, they can be confident in the quality and safety of their choice.”ALRTA
Mat and the team at the ALRTA have had a look through the enforcement data. NHVR look to charge the corporate entities and executive officers as a priority over drivers. The industry needs the emphasis to continue moving away from the driver. It’s not actually necessary to prosecute a driver, but in reality, the fact is, they normally do.
There was a case involving GrainCorp where they challenged the allegations and were successful in overturning 330 alleged overloading breaches and about $18.2 million in fines. The stakes are high and regulators don’t always get it right. Potentially, that case may have led to a change in practices and perhaps better safety on the road.
applied to have a seat on the committee and John Beer, a Victorian livestock owner driver, has been appointed to take that role. There are three National Vendor Declaration (NVD) documents enforced by the committee. The pig and sheep documentation includes a curfew requirement with the date and time for both feed in water. However, the cattle representatives have refused to include
I think everyone in the room here would support that approach. We’ve had CoR in law around for a while, so we should know whether it works or not. It’s been under Heavy Vehicle National Law since 2012, and it’s been partly adopted in Western Australia now, too, so the concept is catching“Thereon.has been some criticisms about the law in the past, primarily that it only really works after an incident has occurred, that chain parties were presumed guilty, and enforcement powers weren’t sufficient. So, after review, those laws changed in 2018. So, we now have a positive general duty. Parties are meant to take proactive steps to prevent accidents happening in the first place.”Since then the NHVR has progressively taken on enforcement possibility from the states, so we can expect more consistency or coordination, improved targeting.
There’s a reason for this, they need to establish the facts and know that the event has occurred. Then it’s much easier to go for the other parties in the chain. Investigations can skip the driver, but in most cases, that really just doesn’t happen.
44 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022
There were also incidents around Forbes and Dubbo saleyards with some overloading offences, with fines issued to the facility owner who protested about those fines. The situation became political, there was a review of those charges, by the NHVR and an issues paper put out. The original charges were upheld, but there was really no action which actually happened, as aTheresult.livestock
SHARING RESPONSIBILITY?
“These things can actually be quite serious, but it is mostly associated with driving charges. So don’t be expecting drivers won’t be charged when there is a CoR event. Drivers, strictly speaking, aren’t in the chain of responsibility, but they really are the basis for pursuing the other parties.
“Where primary duties, enforcement is involved, it was either the operator, or effectively the owner, depending on the ownership structure. But in all the cases, they worked within the transport company. So, the bottom line is, looking at all the evidence, I can’t see any evidence that there’s any action being taken further up the chain on those that are making demands on the operators.”
“Looking through all of that, and I can tell you that mostly it is drivers that are in the firing line here.
Paul Pulver, LBRCA President.
Stockmaster. “Particularly in livestock transport anywhere in Australia. All of the prosecutions have been directed at the drivers and the transport company. I haven’t seen a processor or a producer included. I believe there’s a couple of simple fixes for this. If we were to move to the livestock fit to load guide, and the penning densities, I believe that could be very simple for the legislation to change. So, when the person wants to send off 60 steers, they have to sign off on the NVD, which is a legal document.“Theywant to send out 60 steers, and the benchmark for the industry is that will
“For myself, the NHVR so far, and the CoR have been very, very disappointing,” said Robert Cavanagh owner and operator of Cavanagh Transport and
Mathew Munro, the Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters Association Executive Director
RURAL TRUCKING MATTERS
www.powertorque.com.au 45
This move by the cattle lobby ensures the responsibility for effluent spills cannot be followed back up the chain to the primary producers and rest entirely on the livestock transporters.
CoR AND OVERLOADING
Robert Cavanagh owner and operator of Cavanagh Transport and Stockmaster
“I believe that having them sign off on that on the NVD on the fit to load guide would include them in our paperwork. If we are intercepted and knocked off for it, then they’ve signed off on the fact that they are included in the chain by providing false
amount to 36 tonnes, they sign off on that. If they send that with a driver that’s maybe not experienced in the livestock industry. They’re probably going to have a bit of trouble picking the actual weight of the cattle. The livestock producer will have weighed 99 per cent of those cattle and knows the weights of those cattle within 5-10kg at the outside.
such information in a legal document like the NVD. The committee works on consensus and the cattle representatives refuse to budge.
and misleading information. So, all the tools are there that we need to enact this, we just need to have the will, from the regulatory powers to include anybody in the whole agricultural sector.”
46
The NHVR has gone through a regulatory advice process with container operators which are responsible for long queues of trucks sitting out on the public road. Container freight businesses don’t care about what happens outside the gate, but regulatory advice has been sent to them. The next stage sees the NHVR officers visiting the operation and asking: How come there’s a line up outside the front gate? Then there’ll be some investigations done. For the NHVR going though this process ensures the operators know they are doing wrong and then have to do something about it.
“I wouldn’t disagree with things that have been said around Chain of Responsibility,” said John Gilbert, NHVR Stakeholder Engagement, Manager, Industry. “Our reporting line for us is extremely important. We can’t do much without evidence, it is key in this space. If people
that this organisation is crap, that doesn’t go anywhere. The best outcomes we’ve had on that reporting line are when drivers come in with their actual logbooks, their documentation, where they’ve been told to overload, that’s when we get the best outcome.“There are other tools that we’re putting in place around informing industry, you’ll see some regulatory advice starting to come out from the regulators, we’re going to do one of those on livestock, for sale yards, for real estate, and stocking station agents. When that advice comes out, we
At the end of the discussion, Paul Pulver the retiring President of the LBRCA summed up the feeling of the room.
John Gilbert, NHVR Stakeholder Engagement, Manager, Industry
THE VIEW FROM THE REGULATOR
RURAL TRUCKING MATTERS
“The reporting line is extremely important to us,” said John. “I had an incident a couple of months ago, where a driver called me. I organised the police to meet him at a particular service centre at three o’clock in the morning. We actually got that operator, not the driver, the operator, because he produced all his logbooks and everything else. He was told he had to get from certain place in Queensland to Brisbane in a certain time, which he physically could not do. He pulled up, he gave us the evidence for that, we continued that investigation, and we got an “Ioutcome.wouldjust say that as a general rule, evidence is key. If you have evidence that someone is doing something, or making you do something, you’ve got to give us tools, you’ve got to give us that evidence. The investigators just can’t come in and say we think you’re doing something wrong. We now want to look over your trucks or over your books. If I walked in and said that, you would all tell me to buzz off.”
“Quite often they just lie about the weight of the stock, so they can get more stock to the abattoirs for a cheaper price per head,” said Paul. “If we turn around and say we’re not taking them, the chance of getting invited back to do their job again is very slim. That’s why we support the CoR, but we can’t continue to be the guinea pig, who takes the fines. We, as an association, thought CoR was the answer to this. It’s the same with effluent, the farmers sit back, run animals straight out of the paddock, and straight onto the truck. The truck gets down the road and its effluent tanks are full.”
46 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022
As the business expanded Kent employed several people to help him with the workload but he soon realised the added cost of employing drivers was skimming the cream off the top of his earning capacity.
48 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 OPERATOR PROFILE
Speaking about his move to purchase the Daily, Kent says he decided he needed a bigger vehicle, particularly when it was just him doing the run.
“I was getting older and the run was getting busier and there was just too much stacked in the back of the HiLux, I was having to move too many boxes around to get to things and it was wearing me out,”
Kent Baldwin
As a result, Kent decided to scale back the business to one vehicle, which only he drives, and has been going gangbusters ever“I’vesince.been doing a lot better on my own, plus I have the personal contact with my customers,” he says. “They all know me everywhere I go and when I walk into the pub it’s ‘G’day Kent, how ya goin’, not that I remember all their names.”
through to retirement as he plans to keep it for five years. When asked what he would buy if he needed to replace it, without hesitation he replied, “another Iveco Daily.”
“Following this I also worked for Ansett Pioneer and then Greyhound and in later years Sunliner Express at Gosford,” says Kent. “Then I went on to interstate driving trucks with Gosford Transport.”
Now at 62 years of age, Kent reckons his current Iveco Daily E6 70C might see him
“At the time I was looking for something different to do and I saw this little seafood run advertised for sale,” Kent says. “It was nothing compared to what I’m doing now – the old bloke who owned it basically just did a couple of days a week to fill in his time.”Seeing the potential for improvement, Kent purchased the business for a song and set about growing it, and at the same time building a legion of loyal customers in the west of the state who would otherwise be deprived of obtaining the freshest seafood directly from its source.
In the beginning Kent used his LandCruiser wagon to tow a tandem-axle refrigerated trailer before buying a number of HiLux cab/chassis units fitted with refrigerated pan bodies.
RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB
Owning and running a neat little business delivering seafood from Sydney to the Central West of New South Wales, Kent Baldwin talks to PowerTorque’s Paul
Kent’s experience with trucks stretches back to his childhood when he would go for trips with his uncle who was an interstate truckAfterdriver.finishing an apprenticeship as a fitter and turner with Unilever, Kent moved to Scone and started working for a bloke called Ronny Brumpton who owned an earthmoving and livestock haulage company.Hethen moved back to the Central Coast and worked for McPhee Transport for a while before moving into coach driving with Seargents Bus Lines based at Wyong.
“At one stage I had three vehicles on the road and employed a couple of drivers, but I just couldn’t find anyone with the same passion for the business that I have,” says Kent. “For example, where I’d stay out there until the truck was empty, the drivers would often be coming home with leftover product which then couldn’t be sold.
ent Baldwin has driven trucks and coaches for much of his working life, and has owned his seafood business for 18 years, having purchased it from an older gentleman who was running it on a semi-retirement basis.
“On top of their wages I was paying for their food and living away from home allowances, which meant that I was barely breaking even in terms of my profit margin.”
TRUCKIN’ HISTORY
The truck of choice is a new Iveco Daily E6 70C, that according to Kent is the ideal tool for his trade. In this country the versatile Iveco Daily is by far the most successful product in the Iveco stable and it’s easy to understand why when you talk to people likeForKent.Kent, the Daily has the best mix of performance, comfort, reliability and load carrying capacity for his operation that involves collecting a full load of seafood from the Sydney Fish Market and travelling to far flung western NSW locations ranging from Tamworth in the north to West Wyalong in the south.
CATCHMatthei OF THE DAILY
K
“Maybe with the next one I’ll hook up to a fifth-wheel caravan so my wife and I can do some tripping around Australia in style.”
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saysHeKent.purchased his new Daily in early 2021 and it’s interesting to hear his reasoning for choosing this vehicle over the veritable plethora of alternative brands of light truck in the Australian market.
“I like the idea of a bonnet in the smaller trucks,” says Kent. “I looked at some of the Japanese brands, but you’re sitting right at the front and there’s really very little there to protect you if the worst shouldHavinghappen.”decided on a bonneted truck, Kent looked at a couple of European brands before settling on the Iveco Daily, and he says he couldn’t be happier with theAfterdecision.deciding on the truck, Jared
Kent says the whole package has turned out to be very cost effective, starting with the repayments which he says are not much more than what he was paying with the HiLux.
Given his regular run involves long distances between stops on some very ordinary road surfaces in western NSW, Kent was adamant he wanted a bonnet out front, which narrowed the field quite considerably. The reason for this, he says, is twofold: Ride comfort and maximum protection if an animal strike should occur.
Butler at Newcastle Iveco put Kent onto refrigerated body specialist Tranzfreeze in Melbourne, who set about designing and building a bespoke body to Kent’s exacting specifications. This took a couple of months so when the truck arrived from Italy it was shipped to Tranzfreeze where the body was
fitted and delivered to its proud owner in May last year.
OPERATOR PROFILE
The new park brake also engages automatically at key-off and disengages once the driver’s seat belt is on, the key is on and ‘drive’ selected.
Ride comfort of the Iveco Daily is another benefit Kent is keen to espouse. He says the air-suspended driver’s seat makes for smooth sailing on the very ordinary backroads of western New South Wales.
Forreplacing.addedefficiency, Daily E6 has a three-piece bumper. If damaged, this allows any one of the three sections to be replaced individually, reducing costs for the owner.
On the comfort front, a heated and suspended fully adjustable driver’s seat is now standard across the range. The seat also features multiple points of adjustment with lumbar support and an armrest.
systems.Italso has driver and passenger as well as side curtain airbags and for added practicality, Daily E6 adopts a dash-mounted electronic parking brake, providing additional space and easier movement around the cabin.
50 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 OPERATOR PROFILE 50
Also aiding convenience is the optional cordless inducting charging for mobile phones and other devices, while innovative storage solutions throughout the cabin provide plenty of room to stow personal protective equipment and other equipment along with documents.
“I have big feet and sometimes I end up with my right foot half on the brake and half on the accelerator which doesn’t work too well for either stopping or going,” says Kent. “But that’s really my only gripe about the vehicle: Overall, I couldn’t be happier with it. It also looks good and I get lots of comments from people who tell me it really stands out on the road.”
“It cruises up over the hills like they aren’t even there, and I actually have to keep backing off the throttle because it just wants to go,” says Kent. “The e-VGT is brilliant because it eliminates turbo lag, you put your foot down and it responds instantly which is a great thing when overtaking and getting away from the lights.”Kent also believes the diff ratio is spot on as it allows him to cruise at 100km/h with the engine ticking over at 1,800rpm, no doubt a major contributing factor to the excellent fuel economy.
The cabin exterior has also been updated and includes striking new grilles and optional automatic full LED headlights that reportedly increase lighting performance by up to 12 per cent while increasing the driver’s light perception by up to 15 per cent. A further benefit is that, unlike traditional globes, the LEDs will not need
The Daily E6 is equipped with a plethora of safety features including four-wheel disc brakes featuring AntiLock (ABS), Electronic Stability Program (ESP), Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Advanced Emergency Braking (AEBS)
He’s also very happy with the running costs, citing fuel usage including running the fridge plant at a very reasonable 12.7 to 13L/100km (22.2 to 21.7 MPG).
In fact, the only real criticism Kent has of the Daily is that for him the pedals are a tad too small.
As for the driving experience, Kent couldn’t be happier. He opted for the high performance 3.0-litre diesel with electronic variable geometry turbo (e-VGT) which delivers a barnstorming power peak of 155kW (210hp) at 3,500rpm and 470Nm of maximum torque at 1,500rpm. Kent also specified the ZF eight-speed fully automatic transmission which he reckons is a perfect match for the torquey powerplant. He says the powertrain package has ample capacity when the truck is fully loaded at its 4,495kg gross vehicle mass limit.
“The automatic gear shifter is great too, if you need to pull up quickly you can pull it into manual mode and downshift quickly for enhanced engine braking and then flick it back to Eco mode and keep cruising,” says Kent.
“Some of the roads out there are so rough that when I had the HiLux it literally jarred the bones of my backside, but with the Daily I just float along on the airsuspended seat just like in a big truck,” says Kent. “It’s also got the armrests on both sides so I can set the adaptive cruise control and sit back in my armchair while it effortlessly eats up the miles quietly and comfortably.“Youfeel good driving it, and the forward visibility as well as the large rearview mirrors and spotters make all-around visibility superb.”
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“We’ve also gone to a lot of trouble to ensure a support network in the marketplace by training key installers to support the release of iMass®. We have already trained a number of our TruckServices Service Partners both locally and interstate in the installation, calibration and ser-vice of iMass®. Once installed across the truck, trailers and dolly, the system is calibrated and once certified with Knorr-Bremse, a Compliance Certificate is provided.”RachelMichaud is the Knorr-Bremse lead engineer for iMass®. Rachel states that “Connectivity between truck and trailers is a no worry event for the driver with no additional cables or air lines required. Tapping into the existing TEBS power socket via the ISO 7638 universal connection solves the issue neatly powering both and allowing communications with the already fitted TEBS Module.
chieving the required Transport Certification Australia (TCA) mass accuracy of 98 per cent, is no mean feat. Critical to this was that Knorr-Bremse developed this product right here in Aus-tralia.
It is designed to measure the pressure in the air suspension of the vehicle and relate this to a ve-hicle mass estimation.
Knorr-Bremse’s customers rely on the company to provide an accurate solution for the require-ments of HPFV (High Productivity Freight Vehicles) that don’t just tick a box, but actually de-liver an accurate Mass Management system.
ease in terms of installation and coupling, particularly across multiple units and mixed combinations.TheKnorr-Bremse iMass® (OBM) system is the only approved Smart OBM system utilising the Trailer Electronic Braking System (TEBS).
Everyone involved committed themselves to the task, and performed countless weight meas-urements, even working in shifts to gather the data for the weight measurements to ensure the Knorr-Bremse iMass® system truly met the stringent requirements for TCA Category B Smart OBM System.
The main components of this system on a truck comprise of a Driver Interface Unit (DIU), an Electronic Control Unit (ECU), a Pressure sensor and Deflection or Level Sensor.Onthe trailers, the Knorr-Bremse iMass® OBM system utilises the current generation Knorr-Bremse G2.2 TEBS, coupled with Knorr-Bremse iLevel Suspension Control plus the iLevel Level Sensor.
transmitted on the ISO11992 CAN for trailer or J1939 CAN for the truck. The DIU is connected to the CAN bus of the ELC ECU to obtain the truck data and uses a CAN reader over the ISO11992 to obtain the trailer
For fleets, accuracy and convenience are critical. From its inception back in 2018, Knorr-Bremse Australia committed to providing a highly consistent and accurate On-Board Mass Management system that was integrated into existing infrastructure. This would be a cost saving and provide
52 POWERTORQUE September/October 202252 CONVERGENCE
Thedata.relevant information is conveniently displayed on a hardwired colour screen that displays the mass across each axle. The relevant information is made available to an In-Vehicle/Telematics unit.
“On this, the Knorr-Bremse iMass® system is rated for up to 7 trailers; with many years of experience in Australia in mining applications where all trailers including the dollies are fitted with Knorr-bremse TEBS and all powered and operational in the harshest of conditions.”
IT’S SMART, REALLY SMART!
The engineering incorporating design, development, testing and compliance was all completed by the engineering and sales team at the Keysborough branch in Victoria.
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The Electronic Levelling Control (ELC) ECU on the truck and the TEBS on the trailer both re-ceive electronic signals from the pressure sensor which is interpreted as a mass value. These mass values are
“Right now the system is compliant with Kenworth, Volvo and Mercedes Benz 6x4, but we’re already working on expanding the range of trucks that iMass® is complied with,” says Rob Bonnefin, Knorr Bremse Product and Marketing Manager. “It’s all hardwired. Fleets have told us they want a hardwired solution to ensure connectivity is easily maintained and reliable.
Deliver more with advanced telematics The world’s best rated commercial telematics platform is up to Australia’s freight task. 40,000 + Global customers 2 Million + Connected vehicles 40 Billion + Daily records Fleet optimisation • Improve fuel economy • Decrease idling • Reduce Speeding • Monitor engine data • Plan maintenance Productivity • Real-time fleet management • Exception rules • Trips & activity reporting • NFC Driver ID • Easy dispatching Safety • Risk & safety reports • In-vehicle coaching • Accident notifications • Collision reconstruction • Driving in reverse Compliance • Vehicle inspections for safety • Seatbelt use reporting • Manage driver infractions • Corporate sustainability programs Expandability • Open-source platform • Marketplace of Add-ons & Add-ins • SDK & APIs • IOX expansion on every device Sustainability • Reduce fuel consumption • Track CO2 emissions • EV performance monitoring and reporting • GO device recycling program Learn more at Geotab.com/au/truck
THE MANY PERKS OF INTEGRATING YOUR ON-BOARD MASS MONITORING SOLUTIONS
An OBM program ensures that operators can legally access a variety of vehicle combinations or access to the road network that wouldn’t have been possible, delivering significant efficiency and productivity benefits. Keep in mind that different types of access can be attained depending on operator needs and access requirements.Thismeans that you can move more with less. It reduces the number of vehicles you need on the road at one time and means you can pick up further work for any spare trucks. And there’s a range of benefits to the community, less congestion and quicker deliveries for example.
THE PERKS OF OBM
Having access to more of the road network
REAL-WORLD BENEFITS
Higher Mass Limits (HML) and access aren’t always about increasing payload, effectively using these tools can enable a range of benefits for every operator.
hen operating vehicles within OBM, it can deliver significant and wideranging benefits to your business, everything from improving efficiency to saving fuel and cutting down on road time.
For example, certain vehicle combinations aren’t permitted to return hauls via Masters Road in Port Kembla. This means there is a detour around an approved Higher Mass Limit (HML) route, adding 8km to a round journey for empty vehicles. OBM allows access to the HML network, improving payload by an additional 2.5 tonnes per load and offering a 10 per cent distance and time-saving and instant reduction in fuel and operational costs.
This is where OBM can make the biggest difference to your business. By showing that you’re complying with weight restrictions in real-time, you can use the program to access protected routes and flexibly return via a different route after you’ve unloaded, one that gets you back to the depot faster.
BETTER ACCESS, BETTER OUTCOMES
The benefits of these OBM solutions and integrations are measurable and instantaneous. Operators can increase their payloads while reducing their
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INCREASED PAYLOADS AND GREATER ACCESS
5454 CONVERGENCE
On-board Mass Monitoring (OBM) systems might sound like they’re nothing more than a solution that can solve a small set of problems. But the reality is that OBM systems are about far more than just knowing what mass your vehicles are carrying.
choose the right weighing system to suit your business and your vehicles.
Integrating OBM scales through nextgeneration fleet management software gives operators a centralised hub for all their applications. Integrating telematics this way delivers up-to-the-minute information that can be used to ensure maximumTransportproductivity.Certification Australia
means that operators can use several specific routes while running larger or unique vehicle combinations with increased payloads, even getting last mile access direct to the door of your customer.
INTEGRATION WITH OBM SCALES
(TCA) has strict guidelines that digital providers’ scales must meet to reach certification, along with certain guidelines
With a regulatory program like On-Board Mass, you can provide the means for your business to improve productivity. Teletrac Navman is a TCA-approved provider of programs such as IAP, OBM, TMA, RIM, and Farm Gate.
1300 111 TeletracNavman477.com.au
Intelligent Access Program (IAP)
Increase your payload to instantly productivity,boostturnaroundtimes, and profits.
Increased toaccess,unprecedentedpayload,andabilityrunPBSenabled vehicle configurations.
Need assistance with a regulatory program to help your business be more productive?
Applications that provide a level of balancecompliancebetween& productivity.
MassOn-Board(OBM)
&TMARIM
NHVAS
Digital solutions to help you and your drivers comply with Heavy Vehicle requirements.
But the challenges to going green are considerable.
All of this came into sharp focus in
POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 SCAN QR CODE TO FIND OUT MORE NATROADABOUT
The New South Wales and Victorian Governments are jointly funding a modest network of hydrogen refuelling stations on the Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne.
IT’S NOT GOING TO BE EASY TO GO GREEN
Of course, EVs have limited range and the relatively short trip-lengths in Europe favour their development.
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July when the Australian Capital Territory became the first Australian government to announce a ban on the sale of fossilfuelled vehicles, including small trucks, applying from 2035.
The Electric Vehicle Council wants a sales goal of 30 per cent of the national fleet to comprise Electric Trucks by 2030, and 100 per cent by 2040.
t should come as no surprise that nine-in-ten NatRoad members responding to a recent survey have no plans to move to electricpowered (EV) or hydrogen powered heavy vehicles in the foreseeable future. They have a lot on their collective plate, with soaring fuel costs making it hard to stay afloat, and the EV truck market is tiny in Australia.
NatRoad is broadly supportive of the push for a national strategy to address the regulatory, infrastructure, and financial hurdles to electrifying the Australian truck fleet. Central to that is bringing in purchase price incentives make buying a zero emissions truck feasible.Right now, the upfront purchase price of an Electric Truck is almost double its diesel equivalent. Small or family-owned businesses make up 98 per cent of all trucking operations in Australia. Given the high capital cost, will banks extend the credit needed for single-vehicle owner-drivers to make the switch?
We are lagging in EV uptake well behind Europe, where there were 346 models registered in 2021.
Nobody can sayy that switching to a fuel that’s 70-80 per cent cheaper than diesel for long-haul journeys and is better for the environment isn’t a good idea. Fewer moving parts also mean lower maintenance costs.
Governments need to exempt zero emission trucks from stamp duty. They also need to upskill or retrain our workforce to make sure we have the local parts manufacturing and service capacity to keep a national zero emissions truck fleet on the road. The approach has to be national and the transition must be planned.States and territories have been busy making zero emissions announcements but they won’t be effective unless adopted as part of a national framework.
Warren Clark, NatRoad CEO, sees the process of moving to zero emissions road transport as being a slow and difficult one for the trucking industry
NATROAD NEWS 56
A scarcity of charging stations, long charging times compared to filling with diesel and higher up-front purchase costs are all major hurdles.
Batteries add significant weight to a vehicle, and detract from its payload capacity.Australian design rules mean that scarcely more than a dozen of the models available overseas can be used on our roads.Hydrogen is an alternative fuel that could be a viable way of lowering heavy vehicle emissions, but the technology isn’t yet at Australia’sscale.first hydrogen-fuelled garbage truck is expected to hit Queensland streets this year. Five hydrogen fuel cell trucks are on track to ferry zinc from Sun Metals’ Townsville mine to the Port of Townsville before the end of 2022.
One analyst estimates there were 70,000 trucks on the world’s roads a year ago, and that number is expected to grow massively by 2030 to reach 1.4 million.
Helping your trucking business by giving you priceless advice, business support, discounts and working with you to navigate complex trucking legislation. today.
Join
To learn more scan here or go to natroad.com.au
WE’RE WITH YOU, EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.
s former US president Harry S Truman once said: ‘progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.’
The ACT strategy is a promising step. Now we need leaders around the nation to get on board.
Australia’s leaders have a once-in-ageneration chance to do exactly that as they grapple with the huge challenge of climateTherechange.nolonger seems to be an appetite to argue whether or not climate change exists. We can only have so many bushfires, floods and extreme temperatures before we realise the scientists are actually onto something.IntheATA’s view, the so-called ‘climate change wars’ are over.
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• delivering a demonstration project for ZE commercial vehicles from 2022
Governments should also deliver a purchase price incentive which would reduce the upfront price difference of zero
The Australian Trucking Association has taken a leadership position on zero emission vehicles. We have endorsed the global memorandum of understanding (MoU) that was unveiled at the COP26 United Nations climate change conference.
Governments must tackle the regulatory, financial and infrastructure barriers which make it difficult for trucking businesses to deploy zero emission heavy vehicles.
TIME TO SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY
• exploring opportunities to replace ACT govt heavy vehicles with ZEVs
• transitioning to zero emission waste trucks by mid-2030s
SCAN THE QR THEFROMFORCODEMOREATA
According to the Australian Trucking Association, when looking at the drive to limit climarte change, now is the time to seize the opportunity and make the transition to zero emissions.
• continuing work nationally on exploring opportunities to strengthen charging and refuelling networks for heavy vehicles
dependence on diesel, where the bottom line is held hostage to volatile global prices and uncertain supply, as we’ve seen withWeAdBlue.know people ask ‘but can we afford to move to zero emission vehicles? We think the question should be ‘can we afford notAllto?’governments have now committed to net zero emissions by 2050 or earlier. If we do not have a plan to reduce emissions, we risk future governments taxing our industry out of existence. To secure the future, we must begin the transition now.
• combining saf ety, such as combining ZE truck recharging infrastructure with rest areassupporting a national approach to ZE heavy vehicles, including stronger emissions standards which is supported by the trucking industry
The ATA has put forward a series of policy recommendations to make zero emission trucks a genuine, cost-competitive choice for trucking businesses.
to make up 30 per cent of sales by 2030 and 100 per cent of sales by 2040. The ATA endorses this goal. We have also partnered with the Electric Vehicle Council, to publish the first Australian policy report on electric trucks produced by industry.
58 POWERTORQUE September/October 202258 INDUSTRY ISSUE
Recently, the ACT government took a brave leadership position and announced its zero emission vehicle strategy, which mentions zero emission trucks, including:
Building on the ACT strategy and existing commitments from the Australian, NSW, Victorian and Queensland governments, we need stronger investments in building both hydrogen refuelling and electric recharging networks.Itisimportant we invest in both electric and hydrogen, so operators can choose the best truck for their business.
Heavy Vehicle Safety is Everyone’s Responsibility Working with you for safer roads across Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia and the ACT and across NSW from August. SAFETYNHVR OFFICERSCOMPLIANCEAND Find out more at nhvr.gov.au
application but include a range for the vehicle’s axle spacings and mass rather than specific measurements.
INDUSTRY ISSUE
Victoria has made it easier to operate Performance-Based Standards vehicles by introducing the concept of in-principle approval.
n-principle approval of a Performance-Based Standards (PBS) application is valid for 12 months and provides certainty that a PBS vehicle will have network access as long as the final design is within the range of the initial application. It allows operators to factor the costs of access into their business case
For example, an application that fits within one of Victoria’s reference vehicle designs (accessible online) will get in-principle approval on the basis of the reference design’s range of axle spacings
A PBS UPDATE FOR VICTORIA
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manufactured, which forms part of the process of gaining access to the road network.Theprocess of obtaining in-principle approval can take up to six months, however because bridge and route assessments can be completed during this stage, design approval and manufacture
approval acts as road manager consent under Division 2 of the National Heavy Vehicle Law. It authorises the NHVR to issue a PBS permit without the need to re-apply for consent from Victoria’s Department of Transport.
Victoria uses de-identified information from PBS vehicles fitted with OBM to monitor road use by heavy vehicles. The information allows the Department of Transport to:
Any changes to the vehicle’s GCM, dimensions or route, require access to be reassessed.Victoriahas released a number of reference designs for heavy vehicle combinations that exceed 26 metres and/ or have a GCM of more than 68.5 tonnes. Reference designs also exist for quad-axle semi-trailers that exceed 46.5 tonnes GCM.
better identify those br idges and structures doing the most work, which aids in investment decisions; move parts of the network to a gazette notice, negating the need for permit; identify gaps in the heavy vehicle network, particularly those preventing last-kilometre access; and · expand access for configurations like A-doubles, A-B triples and B-triples.
INDUSTRY ISSUE
Vehicles fitted with OBM are invited to participate in a study to help guide investment in the Victorian road network.
The purpose of the Victorian Freight and Commodity Movement Study is to collect
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE STUDY OR TO INDICATE YOUR INTEREST, TRANSPORT.VIC.GOV.AUHEAVYVEHICLES@CONTACT: 61www.powertorque.com.au
The study will use OBM and associated freight data from heavy vehicles to expand network maps to cater for more commodity types, assess the comparative volume of transport on specific routes for different commodities, identify the travel times between key origins and destinations, better understand and track the impact of disruptive events over multi-year periods an better understand network use by participating freight vehicles to inform forward planning of road upgrades and maintenance.
In-principlewith.
Most significantly, OBM has the potential to reduce the number of bridge assessments that need to be undertaken, helping to smooth the application process for PBS and other restricted-access vehicles.
periodic telematics and commodity data (where this is available) to develop more granular information on the movement of commodities and vehicle types across the Victorian road network.
seeking the advice of a PBS assessor to begin
The reference designs simplify the process of obtaining a permit and align with PBS. To meet a reference design,
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“The first step of this plan was to lay the foundations to help us to become a robust and resilient company. Being robust and resilient throughout the business cycle means that we can actually provide sustainable profitability to our shareholders and also ensure that we have this profitability to reinvest in our product developments.
ou joined MAN as CEO last November. How do you describe your strategic vision of the company’s future? How do you explain the company’s state in this challenging period for the entire industry?
Alexander Vlaskamp: “When I started, I found that the company had been affected by a few things. Of course, the COVID pandemic had an impact, but also the supply chain challenges relating to semiconductors. However, the company also has a strong new strategy: the New MAN strategy.
“Our second focus is on the future. For us, this means focusing on digitalisation, and ensuring that all of our vehicles and services are connected. This will provide more uptime for our customers, while at the same time making sure that the processes within the company are more efficient.“Ourthird focus is on underlining the development of electrification. At first, we have focused predominantly on electric busses and vans. In terms of the electric busses, we now have a full city range, including our E chassis, which has been recently launched, mainly for export markets outside of Europe.”
GOING GLOBAL
Veteran Italian Truck Journalist and Chairman of the International Truck of the Year Jury, Gianenrico Griffini, asks Alexander Vlaskamp, Global MAN CEO, how the German truck manufacturer is changing to meet today’s and tomorrow’s transport needs.
A READYFUTURE-MAN
Is keeping things in-house a key Alexanderpriority?
Vlaskamp: “Keeping things in-house is indeed a key component, including battery pack production. This will maintain the flexibility of the wide variety of vehicle dimensions we sell. Every customer has a different application.
at this point exactly how the demand for battery electric vehicles will ramp up compared with combustion vehicles.”
63www.powertorque.com.au
Alexander Vlaskamp: “I would be happy to. What we do is that by 2024, we will achieve close to 200 electric heavy duty trucks, once we have actually started our service production. That’s when we will be starting in 2024. But we also know that by 2025 and even 2026, we will have to ramp up in volume.
Regarding the disruption in the economy due to the present situation, do you think this can delay the de-carbonising process?
Alexander Vlaskamp: “Yes, what we are seeing currently, and which will continue in the years to come, is the rollout of the future powertrain. This means the common base engine, the common base gearbox and the common rear axle. This has now been launched with the Scania group. By 2023, this will be launched internationally, in Navistar.”
Alexanderprices?
Bus&TruckMANCredit:Image
Alexander Vlaskamp: “First of all, there are some global crises, especially the geopolitical crisis and the war in Ukraine. I hope that we can find a solution to these. We must also find a solution to the looming food crisis. We can then come back to what is actually even more threatening: the global warming crisis.”
Let’s come back to today’s reality. How did you overcome the troubles created by the component shortage, production disruption and rising raw material
Vlaskamp: “Firstly, we actually had a good start to the year because we saw improvements in the shortages, especially with semiconductors. Then, we were impacted by the Russian war in Ukraine. MAN has been affected because our cable harness production came to a halt. Consequently, truck production could not continue for six weeks. We could secure bus production, external engines, but the production of trucks posed an issue. It has been really great to see now that people in Ukraine are back to work in the factories, of course with safety precautions in place.”
The New Truck Generation is futureoriented from the drawing board. You can use whatever new technology is in the market. Can you outline the MAN’s roadmap toward electrification?
And for the last question, how can you describe the synergies inside the TRATON group? Are you satisfied with the results achieved so far?
Alexander Vlaskamp, Global MAN CEO
those the other plants producing trucks. We are of course hoping for a peaceful resolution to the situation.
Despite Alexandereverything?Vlaskamp: Yes, despite everything. We are investing €40 million ($60 million) to build other plants in other countries to secure production going forward. We feel responsible for the people in those plants, of course, but we also have a responsibility towards our customers and our own people, including
GOING GLOBAL
“We found a method where, in the same production line, we can actually build a combustion truck or a battery electric truck. We do this because nobody knows
64 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 GOING GLOBAL
Yes, every European truck maker has now launched (or is on the cusp of launching) battery-powered trucks, but we’re talking about such tiny volumes. With this in mind, it was good to be brought briefly down to earth when Mercedes-Benz invited me to Germany to drive something with a diesel engine. It was a reminder that 99-point-something percent of new trucks sold in Europe still have a combustion engine.
The truck in question was an Actros L, which if I’m totally honest didn’t exactly blow me away at its launch last summer.
tomlee.galleryandMercedes-BenzCredits:Image
As of October 2022 the Actros L will be available in Europe with a third generation 12.8-litre OM 471 engine. According to Mercedes, it features ‘a great range of technical innovations that are consistently aimed at lowering the total cost of ownership with regard to fuel-saving driving, reduced CO2 emissions, lower operating costs, and higher margins, without affecting performance, vehicle dynamics or driving comfort’.
has been implemented, with increased peak firing pressure of up to 250 bar and increased compression ratio. There has been an increase in NOx, which is handled by a totally revised after-treatment system. Arriving at the same time is an upgraded PowerShift transmission. Called PowerShift Advanced, it features a number of incremental changes, resulting in faster and smoother changes. The optional Top Torque program, available in 450hp and 480hp rated engines only, now provides enhanced performance in 7th to 12th gears whereas it was previously only available in 12th. It sees maximum torque increase from 2,200Nm to 2,400Nm (450hp) and from 2,300Nm to 2,500Nm (480hp).
‘L’ stands for ‘Large’, but unlike the new DAF XG+ the truck isn’t physically larger. It’s simply the new model designation for all of its biggest flat-floored, 2.5m wide StreamSpace, BigSpace and GigaSpace cabs.At the launch I could hear the sound of barrels being scraped as the PR person rolled off the list of improvements. Externally these consisted of little more than an ‘L’ badge, and optional LED headlamps.Itwasasimilar story inside the cab too, with the most significant highlight being a slightly different driving position. The seat is set 40mm lower than it used to be, and was apparently changed following driver feedback. The seat covers and door cards had a refresh, and Mercedes made a big fuss about the new removable 45mm thick mattress topper.
THE DRIVELINE
Well aware of some of these complaints, Mercedes has reengineered the whole system.“Since 2018 we have learned a lot, and listened to our customers,” says MirrorCam engineer Julia Graf.
SECOND GENERATION MIRRORCAM
Since its launch, MirrorCam has received mixed reviews here in the UK. Mercedes made the bold decision to make it standard fitment, but some customers have opted to delete it in favour of conventional mirrors.While plenty of drivers swear by the new technology, I know of others who refuse to drive MirrorCam-equipped trucks. In fact I spoke to one recently who claimed the screens gave him a headache, and he was in the process of getting a doctor’s note to say he couldn’t use it.
She explained that one of the key changes has been the shortening of the camera arms by 10cm on both sides of the cab. This effectively makes the truck 20cm narrower, meaning it can pass through smaller spaces. What’s more, now that the arms don’t protrude any further than the kerb mirrors, drivers are able to better judge their positioning when passing close
PowerTorque’s European Correspondent, Will Shiers , has been testing a European diesel truck for a change, as he gives us the lowdown on the Mercedes-Benz Actros L.
Cab insulation was enhanced too, both in terms of noise and vibration. In other words, not only is it marginally quieter on the road, but if you’re parked-up next to a fridge motor, it’s less likely to keep you awake.
TESTING A EUROPEAN DIESEL TRUCK FOR A CHANGE
Thealone.latest fuel economy improvement has been achieved with the introduction of two new turbochargers. Swirl combustion
n my job it’s all too easy to lose track of reality. These days almost every press trip I’m invited on involves driving zero-tailpipe-emissions trucks, which falsely leads me to believe that we’re further down the road to electrification than we actually are.
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The headline figure is a four per cent improvement in fuel economy over the current generation engine. This, it says, means Actros’ fuel economy has now improved by 23 per cent in the last 11 years
All rather uninspiring right? Well, this year Mercedes has thrown a new engine, gearbox and second generation MirrorCam into the mix. Now the Actros L has got my attention!
I had a brief drive in an Actros L 1853 GigaSpace with new OM 471 engine, PowerShift Advanced and second generation MirrorCam.
Graf said moving the cameras inwards has had the added benefit of improving the perspective, supposedly making it easier to reverse in a straight line. “There is less distortion caused by the angle, so you look straighter along the truck,” she explained to me.
GOING GLOBAL
Another complaint with first generation MirrorCam has been the fouling of the lens in wet weather. By increasing the size of the lip over the lens, this issue has apparently now been eradicated. New software has improved the image quality too, giving better visibility in ‘light-critical’ situations, like reversing into dark or dimly lit buildings, or when the sun is dazzling fromWhenbehind.asked whether she believed Mercedes came to market too early with first generation MirrorCam, Graf said: “I don’t think so. We have plenty of customers who just love MirrorCam. You can’t make everyone like it as it is a change compared with classic mirrors. But it has definite improvements.”
Second generation MirrorCam went into production in April, and can’t be retrofitted to trucks with first generation systems.
I’d like to tell you that I immediately noticed the revised seating position, but didn’t. It had been a year since I last drove an Actros, and we’re only talking about a 40mm difference.
I’m a big fan of the Actros’ interior, in particular that wonderfully uncluttered dashboard and Multimedia Cockpit. That said, you’d need far more than the hour I had behind the wheel to use it to its full potential.Luckily I had a demo driver in the passenger seat, who was able to remind me how to set up the Active Driver Assist system. It offers level 2 autonomy, and basically brakes, accelerates and steers independently. It reads the road ahead,
The latest PowerShift Advanced transmission is great, with its ultraquick and precise gear changes. There’s certainly little in it between this and the ZF TraXon.Itwould have been good to have driven current and new generation OM 471 back to back to truly gauge the improvements. It certainly performed well on this short and relatively flat drive, although it wasn’t the quietest engine I have ever experienced, in particular the engine brake.
obstacles like toll booths.
and even slows to what it considers to be a safe speed to tackle bends and roundabouts.Ittakesawhile to fully trust it, but it becomes a great feature when you do. I just wonder how many drivers, especially older ones, actually use it.
As for MirrorCam, as usual I had no issues with it, but then I was driving forwards in perfect weather conditions. So I’m going to withhold judgement until such time as I can experience it in some adverse weather and lighting conditions.
ACTROS L ON THE ROAD
1300 694 www.genesisequipment.com.au363 NEW FINANCIALYEAR SALE ON NOW
Of the numerous electric trucks PowerTorques’ European Correspondent, Will Shiers , has driven recently, he reckons the Scania L25 is an impressive electric truck. In this case it was a 27-tonne Scania L25 6x2 building supplies truck.
that I was in an electric truck was a revised instrument binnacle. Having turned the key, and watched the instruments burst into life, I simply selected D on the familiar gear selector stalk, and away I went.
It takes roughly 100 minutes to charge from 0 to 100 per cent using a 130kW charger.
Inside the low-entry cab I was greeted by luxury. One of the best things about Scania’s modular build system, is that lower weight, smaller cabs like this, get the same quality interiors as their larger siblings. I’m talking about identical premium switchgear and tactile soft-touch plastics.
Inside the low-entry cab I was greeted by luxury.
S
ania has embraced electricity, and is currently offering two and three axle rigids to UK customers, with a choice of P and L-series cabs. Next year they’ll be joined by regional prime movers, with long-haul prime movers following shortly afterwards. Scania’s electric trucks come with a choice of five or nine 33kWh battery packs. In the case of this vehicle, it has nine, giving 297kWh total. The batteries power Scania’s electric driveline (which consists of the motor and a 2-speed gearbox), producing 230kW (313hp) continuous and 295kW (401hp) peak power.
66 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 GOING GLOBAL 66
Behind the wheel the only obvious clue
Driving couldn’t be simpler, with smooth, effortless acceleration, and almost complete silence. You only realise how well a cab is screwed together when you drive an electric version, and they don’t get any better than this. Other than minimal road and wind noise, all I could hear was a discrete jet-like hum from the electric motor, and the occasional pot-holeinduced muffled crash from the bodywork behind.Performance was fantastic. This electric driveline most closely aligns itself to a nine litre 280hp diesel engine, but with maximum torque from standstill.
AN IMPRESSIVE ELECTRIC TRUCK
Regenerative braking is controlled with a five-stage steering column stalk, located where you’d normally find the engine brake control. It’s intuitive, and it’s possible to cover long distances without touching theThisfootbrake.wasundoubtedly one of the best, and most relaxed driving experiences I have ever had.
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T
That’s the view of Jack Greig, WA state parts manager for the CJD Group, when asked what is most important to his customers.“We’rea mining state and we’re very dependent on iron ore and so forth, which means big trucks earning big money, so availability (of parts) means everything to us,” says Jack.
support the interpreters’ requirements. What we’re trying to get to, is a level of forward planning where, if they know we have a vehicle coming in that may need something left-of-centre, they give us notification ahead of time and we can ensure that we have that stock here to support that requirement.”
Great customer service, strong relationships, strategically located Parts Distribution Centres and sophisticated Managed Dealer Inventory systems are just some of the elements that keeps PACCAR Parts and TRP dealers at the front of their field, but ultimately, it all goes towards the goal of having the right parts available at the right time to keep trucking operators mobile.
68 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 TECH KNOW 68
he phrase “it’s the economy, stupid,” was first coined by James Carville, a strategist for Bill Clinton during the 1992 US presidential campaign and is often referenced during political debates to hone-in on what really matters to voters. There’s an obvious parallel in the trucking world, where keeping big rigs on the road is essential for the success of any“Availability,operation. availability, availability. We live and die by our ability to keep the big trucks on the road.”
Over at Kenworth DAF Melbourne, in Melbourne’s western suburbs, manager Peter Mammarella says the focus his operation puts on the service department is key to building successful customer relations.“We’ve got a dedicated team of parts interpreters set up to service primarily the workshop, and we have a team of three people to look after their needs,” says“OnePeter.of the other things we’re trying to do is better plan our availability to
“For most locations around Australia, PACCAR Parts offer an overnight service for the odd part that is not stocked. MDI (Managed Dealer Inventory) planned inventory helps to limit stock outs and to ensure we have the part on the shelf for that breakdown in the middle of the night,
IT’S PARTS AVAILABILITY, STUPID!
It’s a view supported by Rod Leake, spare parts manager at Mildura Truck Centre, who says PACCAR’s reliable and fast parts service is vital to keeping his customers mobile, and happy.
Joel Bray, parts manager at Wagga Wagga’s Inland Truck Centres agrees that PACCAR Parts range and accessibility is one of the most important ways the company supports its customers.
that untimely fan belt that lets go in the middle of harvest, or that radiator hose that blows in the heat of summer with a load of cattle on board,” says Joel.
“Availability of parts is the most important thing to our customers. It’s what brings them in the door and it’s what brings people back again. Having the right range of parts means people know they’ll be able to complete their repairs and get their trucks back on the road the same day,” says Rod.
With PACCAR and TRP Parts’ extensive nationwide network staffed by friendly industry specialists who can supply parts from the front of a truck to the back of a trailer, customers need look no further for their specialist truck and trailer maintenance requirements, and for industry-leading parts at competitive prices.
Further information
This intelligent and user-friendly platform will enable you to stay in control of your logistics processes, and to get the best out of your people and your vehicles.
PACCAR Connect is an Australian designed and manufactured telematics system, fully warranted and supported by the PACCAR dealer network. Kenworth and DAF vehicles* are fitted with PACCAR Connect as standard equipment, and subscription is complimentary for the first year of ownership.
PACCAR
SuitsP74-PG-1005-AUSuitsP74-PG-1009-AUSuitsP74-PG-1004-AUDAFCFmodelsDAFLFmodelsDAFXFmodels
All PACCAR Connect kits include a 12 month complimentary subscription to the PACCAR Connect Portal
For more information, contact your local dealer or visit: www.kenworth.com.au/services/paccar-connect
Driver and fleet information is available via live tracking on desktop computer or mobile devices through easy-to-read and fully customisable dashboards and detailed reports that provide convenient and timely insights.
Talk to your local PACCAR dealer sales team and get to know this flexible driver and fleet management platform – after all, whatever you transport and wherever you operate, PACCAR Connect will guide you towards increasing your PACCARCONNECT.COM.AUprofitability. about PACCAR Connect, including our PACCAR Connect Privacy Policy, can be found at www.paccar.com.au. Australia Pty Ltd (ACN 004 669 667) is correct at the time of printing, July 2022.
SuitsP74-PG-1006-AUall2.1MCabs - T360, T410/SAR & T610/SAR models
reserves the right to change the specifications and features of this product/service at any time without notice. The information
PACCAR Connect can also share vehicle data with third-party fleet management systems, allowing you the ability to integrate PACCAR vehicles into your business
SuitsP74-PG-1007-AUK200&Conventionals 2014+ (excluding Legend Series) models
*Check with the PACCAR dealer sales team for applicable truck models
The PACCAR Connect telematics system can now be retrofitted on all current DAF Euro 6 & Kenworth 2014+ models
PACCAR Connect is a telematics platform that allows you to monitor driver and fleet performance, whenever you want and wherever you are.
Retrofittable Telemetric Kits Now Available
Working with Byrne Trailers the solution came from going down a few specification routes to get to the desired tare figure. Two of the changes which had the effect of achieving the tare improvement, without compromising on longevity or performance were new trailer axles and new fold-up floors for theThesheep.axle solution came with the Hendrickson INTRAAX AAT250
mong the trucks and trailers on display at the Livestock, Rural and Bulk Carriers Association event in Wagga Wagga, was one from the Dawson Transport fleet with its proud driver, Scott Dawson, keeping it looking good in the rainy weather.
Talking to a couple of other drivers from Dawsons, they have also noticed the improved braking on the batch of new trailers using this design, a lot better than the previous designs used. The drivers reported that the braking on the Hendrickson has got a better feel to it and when the brakes are applied, comes on just a little bit quicker.
trailer axle, which has a 11.3-tonne rated suspension, suited to livestock applications while offering weight savings over traditional mechanical spring suspensions systems.
Trailer maker Byrne Trailers reckon that over the B-double there’s about 800kg saved just in the suspension alone. The Byrne’s design uses an aluminium floor and plastic fold down decks for sheep transport and this contributes close to 700kg in each trailer.
Dawson’s haul livestock and were finding that the size and weight of lambs was getting bigger, making it more difficult to get the loading just right and keep within the regulations of the NSW Livestock Loading Scheme.
The new plastic decks are much more expensive than the old plywood ones, but they last much longer, as well as being much lighter for the driver to lift out of the way when loading cattle. The old plywood floors are timber and will soak up water, when it’s wet, increasing the weight of the decks for handling
A
designed to handle both. With the increasing weight of the animals, the aim was to get trailers able to handle both cattle and sheep, but at a tare weight closer to the cattle-only crates they use.
IMPROVING TRAILER TARE
Most trucking operators are always looking to improve productivity and one of the methods of achieving this is improving trailer tare. At the LBRCA Conference, PowerTorque found an operator who has come across a useful weight saving trailer design.
Scott Dawson from the Dawson Transport fleet.
They are fitted with HXL7 wheelend bearing package with a 5 year or 1,200,000km on-road warranty, severe duty S-cams and the HXS 16.5” x 7” brake shoes, which use a thicker lining material than most standard shoes and are coupled with Hendrickson’s own lightweight brake drums.
The suspension system complies with mass management requirements allowing the fleet to take full advantage of the lower tare weight benefits gained from specifying Hendrickson INTRAAX on their livestock trailers
The business carts both cattle and sheep at different times of the year and has cattle only trailers and those
70 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 TECH KNOW 70
The plastic fold-up decks were chosen for a number of reasons, the lighter plastic decks make for easier manual handling, as well as taking the weight out of trailers and considerably lengthening the longevity of the decks.
The indicator lamp, attached to the front of the trailer, is designed to illuminate and warn the driver if there is a major loss of air pressure, like from a tyre puncture. The indicator lamp will often flash momentarily when the trailer parking brakes are released. If this occurs, the light is operational, and the following steps are notCorrectrequired.operation of the lamp can be checked by letting air escape from the test port on the TIREMAAX PRO controller.
TIREMAAX PRO INSPECTION PROCEDURE
to ensure it is in good condition and clear of dirt and moisture.
EVERY 12 MONTHS
· Apply a foaming agent to all air fitting connections, including the axle vent. Air leaking from the axle vent indicates is an internal leak, possibly from a rotary union or hose connection. Bubbles formed in the foaming agent will provide a visual indication of an air leak. All connections must be airtight.
Swap Test Port Vent Tool
endrickson TIREMAAX™ PRO is an advanced design that relies on straightforward mechanical principles. It is designed to stop working when the park brake is applied
LED Indicator Lamp
1. Ensure that the correct supply voltage is available, that there is sufficient air pressure to the controller, that the park brake is off, and the wheels are chocked before commencing.
H
3. Screw the tool onto the test port so
and when there is no pressure to the controller, such as when the supply valve is turned off. When TIREMAAX PRO is off the tyres will isolate and function as if the system were not installed. This is important because it enables identification of tyre problems by the driver before setting out for a trip. Air leaks from a tyre will result in that tyre deflating, which may then be spotted on the pre-trip inspection.
2. Manually check all tyres for a lowpressure by removing the tyre hoses at the hubcap to check tyre pressure. (See below.)
2. TIREMAAX PRO systems have a test port that covered by a test port vent tool. To enable the test port, remove the tool from the test port and turn it around so that the TEST arrow in the side of the tool points towards the controller. Refer image.
72 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 TECH KNOW
3. Inspect all tyre hoses to ensure that they are secure and free of damage.
EVERY THREE MONTHS
4. Check TIREMAAX controller enclosure
In addition to the above three-month check, inspect all system connections for leaks every year. Leaks need to be checked with air pressure to the controller, the wheels chocked, and the park brake released. This is because the TIREMAAX PRO system is inactive with the park brake applied.
1. Indicator lamp operation check. (See below.)
Tyre pressure control systems are an essential means of keeping tyres in optimal condition, reducing abnormal wear and the risk of other problems. However, while greatly reducing maintenance cost and time, these systems still need regular checks to ensure that they are operating correctly.
INDICATOR LAMP CHECK
Inspection should be carried out at regular intervals. For further technical details refer to Hendrickson Technical Literature T51002, which is available on the www.hendrickson.com.au website.
MANUALLY CHECKING TYRE
73
The most common cause of the TIREMAAX PRO system not operating is due to the supply valve being left off. TIREMAAX PRO is usually mounted in a sheltered position, to protect it from excessive dust and moisture, which means that it can be some time before anyone realises that the valve is off and ineffective. If it is not operating correctly, first check to ensure that the supply valve is in the ON position. Refer image. Secondly, check that the supply and park brake ports are correctly connected, and not the wrong way around.
that ample air flows from the valve. Check that the lamp illuminates. If it does, unscrew the tool and refit with the STORE arrow pointing toward the controller.
TIREMAAX PRO COMMON FAULT
2. Unscrew tyre hose from hubcap. Refer image.
PRESSURE
4. Inspect tyre hose O-rings for nicks or cuts. Replace as needed.
3. Use a conventional gauge to measure tyre pressure at hose end.
WARNING: To prevent injury, always follow recommended safety procedures when maintaining or servicing tyres and wheels.
Disconnect Hose from Hubcap
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1. Ensure vehicle is turned off and park brake is applied.
hose. Ensure the hoses do not protrude past the wheel. A small smear of antiseize on the fitting thread will help prevent it from seizing and galling.
5. Reattach and firmly hand tighten tyre
Therefore, it is imperative that the oil and water are drained out as soon as possible. Then the axles and hubs are removed and the axle housing interior thoroughly steam cleaned to remove all traces of grit.
POST FLOODING MAINTENANCE
If a heavy vehicle gets trapped in deep floodwater, a detailed and comprehensive maintenance program is required before it can be returned to service, here are some post flooding maintenance tips.
As a general rule, vehicles shouldn’t be driven through water deeper than the centreline of the axles, but even then there are risks associated. For example, if a vehicle that has been driven and braked hard is driven straight into deep water the sudden cooling of brake drums can cause them to crack and the cooling of hubs and bearings can draw water in past the seals, even if they are undamaged. Therefore, even relatively shallow water crossings should not be made without first pausing for at least 30 minutes to allow these components to cool.
Finally, inspect the radiator, oil cooler, intercooler and air conditioning condenser cores and blow out any debris that may have lodged between the fins.
Then with the vehicle suitably supported on jack stands to elevate the drive wheels,
and slip joint on the driveline, as well as the king pin and steering linkage grease nipples (if fitted) to purge any water that has sneaked in past the seals.
vehicle to sit overnight to ensure all the diesel fuel is fully drained out, then reinstall the plugs and fill the components with the recommended grade of oil. As a rule, using synthetic oil in these components provides superior lubrication because it doesn’t break down and lose its effectiveness over extended periods like mineral oil can.
nyone who owns trucks dreads the thought of their vehicles being swamped by floodwater, and with the recent deluges this country has received, and the continuing La Niña weather pattern promising to bring more of the same, the likelihood of this happening has been elevated considerably.
74 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022 TECH KNOW 74
If the water level is above the top of the diff housing the likelihood of water entering through the breather is high. Hence the reason 4WD vehicles that do river crossings have gearbox and diff breather extension tubes.
Similarly, the steer axle wheel bearings will need to be removed and washed before being re-lubricated and reinstalled.
Generally speaking, unless the water level completely submerges the engine
A
After washing the bearings and re-oiling them the hubs and axles are reinstalled and the diffs and gearbox are filled to the filler plug levels with diesel fuel, which is actually a very light oil.
The real problem with a vehicle being partially submerged by floodwater is the fine mud and sediment suspended in the water that settles inside the diffs and gearbox and if not removed can cause rapid wear of gears and bearings.
Following these simple practices should ensure a safe and trouble-free return to work for the vehicle, with minimal impact on the life expectancy of the various components.
“We are proud to have saved our customers money and helped reduce exhaust emissions since we established Straight Wheels in 1985,” says Peter. “Since then we have helped improve tyre life, vehicle handling, safety, road holding and driver comfort on well over 100,000 vehicles.”It’sestimated that over 70 per cent of the trucks on our roads have misaligned drive axles. To keep the trucks going straight, the turning force of the axles must be offset by turning the front wheels
He further elaborates on the consequences of a line-haul truck having a toe misalignment on the drive axles of only 0.6 degrees.
www.powertorque.com.au DIESEL WORKSHOP 75
“Because our system measures where the axles point, it isn’t fooled by setback,” says Peter. “We use electronic sensors to measure individual toe on one drive axle and use that information to determine the thrust line. We then align that axle to point down the centre of the frame. Following this we measure and align each of the other axles parallel to the reference axle, ensuring all wheels roll in a perfectly parallel action.”
Correctly aligned wheels on trucks and trailers are paramount to ensuring maximum tyre life and minimum fuel consumption. Straight Wheels Truck Alignment at Rocklea has been helping truck operators keep their rigs running true since 1985.
T
Other equipment includes a 175tonne axle press for straightening and re-cambering steer, drive and trailer axles and an on-vehicle wheel balancing machine.Every vehicle is inspected prior to a wheel alignment to detect worn components that must be replaced to ensure a successful alignment.
According to Peter, it takes just a 2.5mm error in wheel alignment to have a big impact on running costs over time. He adds that correct alignment is necessary for optimum handling characteristics, contributing to increased safety and reduced driver fatigue, especially on line-haul.
The Straight Wheels Total Alignment Process sets all the wheels parallel which, in concert with correct tyre inflation works to minimise rolling resistance and improve operating efficiency.Thisisachieved through the use of sophisticated computerised wheel alignment equipment which electronically compensates each sensor for runout, a common issue due to slightly bent or distorted rims.
The company can accommodate all types of trucks including single and twin steer with full steer and drive axle computer alignments. Using the latest state-of-the-art computerised total integrated alignment systems manufactured by USA company Hunter Engineering, complete camber, caster and toe alignment is achieved.
The equipment also automatically references toe to the geometrical centre line and correctly computes the thrust line, even when offset is present.
he telltale signs that your truck needs a wheel alignment include steering wheel shimmy, shake, vibrations and pulling to one side. Uneven tyre wear including wear on inner or outer edges is another deadThegiveaway.teamoftechnicians at Straight Wheels has a combined experience in truck wheel alignment of over 50 years and according to company owner, Peter Mathers, there’s no wheel alignment issues the company can’t rectify.
in the opposite direction. This causes all tyres to scrub, kilometre after kilometre.
“If the truck travels 250,000kms a year, the resultant cumulative effect of this error would be the equivalent of dragging the tyres sideways for 200km,” says Peter. “But aligning only the steer wheels is not enough. One of the two most critical factors in steer tyre wear is drive axle misalignment, which affects all the tyres on the truck. Think of all the extra fuel being used and the tyres being prematurely worn – that’s a lot of money coming straight out of your profit.”
HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
Peter says the work he and his team have done over the last 37 years has saved a conservatively estimated 9,500 tonnes of rubber and countless thousands of litres of fuel.
· T he new ADR 14/03 - Devices for Indirect Vision
h e Federal Government is currently processing legislation in readiness to implement an optional vehicle width increase to 2.55metres (with conditions). In the second in a two part series, the question Australian Trucking Association Chief Engineer, Bob Woodward is asking is, what would happen if trailers were wider? The ATA propose an extension of the width limit to 2.6 metres
And, assuming 2.55 metres (or 2.6 metres) did proceed it’s not without conditions. The vehicles must comply with new and/or revised ADRs:
· I ncreased roll stability means reduced propensity for roll over.
The possibility of a move to a new (but optional) standard of width, will require a change to some fabrication practices and jigs etc. But for legislative managers to consider implementing two significant changes within a few years, is yet another example of bureaucratic madness. It shows how little the regulatory influencers and decision makers understand the road transport industry.
to implement an optional vehicle width increase to 2.55metres (with conditions). But there is a further consideration that after a satisfactory period (currently suggested as three years) to then consider reviewing the width to 2.6Curtain-sidedmetres. trailers are already at a nominal 2.55 metres (some slightly more) and industry has had these for years. But this width was only validated when PBS came along, as PBS certifiers could not certify such trailers as they were technically over-width, greater than 2.5 metres.
The Federal Government is currently processing legislation in readiness
Wider trailers, benefit from: · wider track centres, with, · wider suspension centres, o which result in improved roll stability
SCAN THIS CODE FOR THE RELEVANT BULLETINTECHNICALATA POWERTORQUE September/October 2022
· I ncreased width can also reduce load height centre of gravity o W hich further results in improved roll stability
There has been plenty of discussion on the climate change and increasing temperatures. This means the temperature-controlled industry needs the most efficient refrigerated trucks and trailers available, immediate refrigeration efficiency benefits can be achieved with a width increase to 2.6Whymetres.would any operator make a short-term investment in a 2.55metre trailer (unless the new equipment is desperately required to service a new contract) when within three years (or even five years) it may be superseded, by a better one? If there may be the possibility of the option of wider trailers with wider track centres and wider suspension centres and reduced load height (CoG) in combination resulting in improved increase roll stability, which equals increased safety.
· T he new ADR 99/00 - Lane Departure Warning Systems
The current approach to width has the hallmark of being akin to what is often an outcome of infrastructure planning; knowing full well that a bridge suitable for B-triples will be required within five years, but we build a new one suitable
· C umulatively this equates to about a 6-7 per cent improvement in the static roll threshold.
·
76 TECH KNOW
· T he new ADR 97/00 - Advanced Emergency Braking
T he new ADR 105/00 - Blind Spot Information Systems
· T he new ADR 35/07 - Commercial Vehicle Brake Systems
for semi-trailers, stifle productivity and access for B-doubles Then 10 years later, the bridge will be upgraded to suit the B-triples when the forward planning shows indicates that the re-design should be considering AB-triples.
S light degraded swept path (50 per cent of trailer width as an increase) but less than 0.7 per cent at PBS level 1
IF WE GO TO A 2.6 METRE WIDTH LIMIT:
·
Wider trailers, disbenefit:
WHAT WEREHAPPENWOULDIFTRAILERSWIDER?
T
In the majority of single vehicle combination roll-overs, it is the last trailer that initiates the roll-over, so how can we reduce the incidence of these events? ABS and roll stability were already mandated on all new trailers delivered after the 1 November 2019.
· I ncreased lane width (but is this really measurable?) and increasing track width, but by reducing static roll threshold, it will generally improve trailing fidelity.
The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator and others are reportedly opposed to allowing narrow (2.5 metre) prime movers towing wider (compliant trailers. It seems that it has been OK for more than 15 years (and pre-NHVR) for standard (narrow) prime movers to tow 2.55nmetre wide curtain siders.
T he new ADR 106/00 - Side Underrun Protection (to UN R73/01, which is known to have limitations in the Australian operating environment)
·
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Mark Mitchell, Chairman of the Australian Food Cold Chain Council (AFCCC) celebrates a rare achievement for refrigerated transport.
78 POWERTORQUE September/October 2022
AUSTRALIA CAN ADD THIS TO ITS CENTURY OF FIRSTS
In the world of transport refrigeration, this is the holy grail where system manufacturers are able to confirm that a refrigeration system is installed onto a compliant transport asset rather than just assume that the system and truck body are matched in capacity, especially in frozen conditions, to -18°C. It’s the same for end users who need assurance that their vehicles do what they are supposed to do, by achieving the
THISSCANCODEFORMOREINFORMATION
COLD CHAIN
the desired temperature, will do the job at every step in the cold chain, and is certified to do so.
This certification is also a collaboration between the body builder and the refrigeration system manufacturer. There must be strong synergy between the two, and in this current case, Eurocold and Carrier Transicold have got it just right. The team at SuperTest in Brisbane who carried out the test confirmed the standard Eurocold 14-pallet ISO kit body with barn doors and a Carrier Transicold Supra 1250 fitted, passed the strenuous five days of thermal testing within a goodFrommargin.anend-user or food product owner perspective, this level of cold chain compliance should be paramount in all activities. We are all busy ensuring food safety laws are followed, even down to the level of thermal requirements for all food groups. For frozen food, stakeholders will continue to seek the best way to transport at -18°C, but now there is a real choice to consider and it’s a no brainer.
In July, an Australian company, quietly working inside the noise of world events, more Covid panic and Cameron Smith winning the British Open, achieved another AustralianBrisbane-basedfirst. refrigerated transport truck maker, Eurocold had submitted their latest 14 pallet truck for testing and certification to Australian Standard AS49822003-Thermal performance of refrigerated equipment, and it reached the ultimate level, Class C Category for Refrigerated Vehicles -18°C/38°C.
In the case of this Eurocold achievement, when the vehicle is used for frozen food and where verification of -18°C is required at each step in the process, the operator using this asset can sleep well at night knowing that the transport will achieve
nformative articles such as this are not supposed to be advertorials, showing commercial bias or favouritism. But every now and then, a champion comes along with an achievement so profound that it cannot be ignored.
I
temperature for the food being transported. The Eurocold vehicle is the first to achieve this certification in Australia thisWecentury.areoften asked why our cold chain industry should aim so high, particularly to achieve AS4982 and other ISO standards, our answer is always the same. This is world’s best practice. It is principally the same as any manufacturer using recognised standards to ensure that quality, safety, and consistency is delivered in the final product. A good parallel example in vehicle manufacture would be the standard that applies to brakes. No manufacturer these days would use components that do not meet all the appropriate AS/NZ or ISOCompliantstandards.transport assets that meet this thermal performance standard and that comply to a quality management system for the safe transport of food, are delivering an assurance that they are capable of reaching the correct temperature in all conditions.
Hats off to the Eurocold and Carrier Transicold teams.
Superior performance
Carrier Transicold Australia
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Building on hundreds of thousands of operating hours, SUPRA demonstrates a robust design both for aesthetics and components to extend the unit lifetime and reduce downtime.
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XAVIER_HINO38841.10 THE ALL-NEW HINO 700 SERIES - THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR EVERY FLEET. The Hino 700 Series has long been one of Australia’s favourite heavy-duty trucks and the all-new Hino 700 Series features more models for you to choose from, no matter what sort of business you run. There is a wider range of axle configurations, including 4x2, 6x2, 6x4 and 8x4. More transmission and engine options, with the proven A09C 9L engine producing 320hp or 360hp and the ever reliable E13C 13L producing 450hp or 480hp. It all adds up to an enhanced driving experience from a bigger, better and cleaner range of heavy-duty trucks. The only question is, which Hino 700 Series will you choose for your fleet? Find out more at hino.com.au
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