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Trailer-Body Builders / October 10, 2017 Freightliner Trucks and Old Dominion Freight Line celebrated their long-time partnership at Daimler Truck North America’s (DTNA) Cleveland, North Carolina truck manufacturing plant as a new Cascadia rolled off the assembly line—the 15,000th Freightliner purchased by Old Dominion since 1991. It is also the first new Cascadia model to be built at the Cleveland truck manufacturing plant. Freightliner customized the new Cascadia to Old Dominion’s specifications to maximize utility, safety and efficiency for its nationwide operations. “The new Cascadia is the market leader that improves safety and fuel economy, and based on our long-term partnership, it’s only fitting that the first one we make in Cleveland would be for Old Dominion,” said Henning Bruns, general manager of the Cleveland truck manufacturing plant. “Old Dominion always says that to them, it’s not just a shipment, and to us, they’re not just a customer. This is a fitting way to start the next chapter of our partnership.” The companies’ ceremony took place at the plant’s truck museum, where some of DTNA’s most notable trucks and the company’s history in Cleveland is showcased. Old Dominion executives toured the assembly line, inspected the robotics and manufacturing processes, and met with the plant employees who helped build the truck. “Old Dominion continuously invests in our equipment and technology to meet the needs of our customers,” said Thomas Newby, Old Dominion’s vice president of equipment and maintenance. “For more than two decades, Old Dominion has repeatedly turned to Freightliner for dependable, best-in-class tractors that help us deliver the on-time, premium service our customers expect.” Freightliner and Old Dominion have similar backgrounds. Old Dominion started in 1934 and quickly became one of the nation’s leaders in hauling material needed for World War II. Meanwhile, Leland James launched Freightliner Trucks in 1942 because he could not find a company that would build a lightweight tractor to navigate the western Rocky Mountains. Today, 75 years after James started building his own trucks, Old Dominion is one of his company’s biggest customers. Already, customers have booked more than 25,000 of the new Cascadia truck models, topping the combined number of orders for the first three years after the 2007 launch of the original Cascadia, which is the leading on-highway truck in North America. .

International positioned to capitalize on strengthening truck market James Menzies, Truck News / October 10, 2017 NEW CARLISLE, Ind. – A refreshed International Trucks product line is being rolled out as demand for new trucks strengthens, which should make 2018 a good year for Navistar. “I’m very bullish on 2018,” Jeff Sass, senior vice-president of sales and marketing with Navistar told journalists, who were visiting for an International Trucks ride-and-drive. He noted freight rates are up, the economy is strong, and load volumes are increasing, all of which should carry into 2018. “I think it’s going to be a big year for trucking and for truck manufacturers,” Sass said. However, he remains concerned about how the impending electronic logging device (ELD) mandate will affect the used truck market. Sass said fleets could initially see an 8-12% productivity loss as they deploy ELDs, and he wonders how the fleets that typically run used trucks will adapt. “Right now, we’ve got half the freight in America being hauled by a second or third owner,” Sass said. “Most of those second and third owners have not implemented ELDs. Will they be able to maintain their standing?” A stronger truck market in 2018 will be welcomed by Navistar, which is refreshing its entire product line. Sass said the company is already seeing its market share improve this year, about 3% in the medium-duty segment and 0.5% in Class 8. Sass says it’s largely because of Navistar’s focus on uptime, and its driver-centric approach to truck design. “For major fleets, their number one cost of total operation was driver retention,” Sass said. “Fleets have told me they have more loads than drivers and they’ll buy every truck I can sell them with a driver in it.” To this end, International Trucks product updates have been driver-focused. Sass pointed to the switches, the placement of the air horn lanyard, the instrument clusters, mirror placement, etc., as items that were enhanced with driver input. Denny Mooney, senior vice-president of product development, said International will continue to roll out new products over the next two years. It has already replaced its ProStar with the LT, the ProStar 113 with the RH for regional haul, the PayStar with the HX, and most recently, the WorkStar with the new HV. It also updated its classic-styled LoneStar, and brought to market a 12.4-liter A26 engine. “We really tried to make these products, products drivers want to drive,” said Mooney. “When you go talk to our big fleet customers, they tell us ‘If our drivers don’t want to drive your trucks, we’re not going to buy your trucks’.” The company conducted driver clinics and even brought clay models of its interiors to fleets, to collect driver feedback when refreshing its product line. It is also pushing safety technologies more aggressively. The company has doubled its air disc brake penetration rate in the last two years, and made them standard on the LT series this year. It also made collision mitigation standard on the LT and has seen the take rate climb more than 50%. And automated transmissions are now being spec’d in more than 70% of International trucks. Visiting journalists were given the opportunity to drive the full line of International trucks, at the company’s sprawling New Carlisle, Ind., proving grounds. We’ll have a full report soon. .

FMSCA to Exempt Short-Term Truck Rentals from ELD Rule Heavy Duty Trucking (HDT) / October 10, 2017 The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is expected to announce on Oct. 11 that it will grant an exemption from being required to use an electronic logging device to “all drivers of property-carrying commercial motor vehicles rented for eight days or less, regardless of reason.” The exemption will apply to the ELD mandate that kicks in on Dec. 18 — just 10 weeks away. FMCSA made it clear that drivers who will operate under this short-term rental exemption will remain subject to the standard hours-of-service limits and so will have to maintain a paper record of duty status (RODS) if required, and maintain a copy of the rental agreement on the vehicle. The exemption results from a petition filed with the agency by the Truck Renting and Leasing Association. FMCSA pointed out that TRALA, in its petition, was “concerned about the unintended technical and operational consequences that will unfairly and adversely affect short-term rental vehicles,” given that it will be unlikely that most of the ELDs used by these drivers will able to communicate properly with a rental company’s telematics platform. “TRALA states that while FMCSA recognized during the rulemaking process these issues associated with a lack of interoperability among ELD systems, and required certain technical specifications in the final rule, the agency stopped short of requiring full interoperability among ELDs," FMCSA stated in its notice to be published in the Federal Register. In an Oct. 10 news release on the petition being granted, TRALA emphasized that the exemption will not apply to drivers of rental vehicles operating for longer than eight days. They will still have to comply with the new ELD rule. TRALA President and CEO Jake Jacoby met with FMCSA on Oct. 5 at their request to explain the agency's decision. “While TRALA had the support of all its members, the vast majority of the trucking industry, as well as the diverse customer base that utilizes rental trucks, the agency explained that they had to couple that with a strong desire to make sure the mandate could be enforceable and to not deviate too much from a congressional directive,” the association advised. TRALA’s petition had actually sought an exemption that would cover the drivers of trucks rented for 30 days or less. The association said that while it “regrets” that FMSCA went with only an eight-day exemption, it expects the shorter period to be allowed still “will help alleviate some problems that would have existed had TRALA's petition been denied outright – especially for addressing breakdowns.” The key problems TRALA had envisioned might result from the ELD rule are “administrative and logistical in nature, which FMCSA has acknowledged. During the meeting on Oct. 5, FMCSA told TRALA that the ELD mandate would allow drivers to combine HOS records from their own ELD platform with the one provided by a truck rental company even if they are different systems. Unfortunately, this likely would result in every driver having to manually log his/her HOS information by combining two systems. "This could cause significant loss of time and would require drivers to learn a whole new ELD operating system all to fulfill HOS reporting for short-tern rentals,” the association continued. TRALA added that it "believes these hurdles fly in the face of the Trump administration's goal of having fewer harmful regulations and to have those regulations that are implemented be as efficient as possible.”

Today’s Trucking / October 10, 2017 NEW CARLISLE, IN – Backed by a new family of products and a robust economy, Navistar executives are clearly feeling positive about the future. “We have [introduced] a lot of new products in the last two years, and we got a lot of new products coming in the next two,” said Denny Mooney, senior vice president – product development, during a briefing to industry media. Those new products include the LT linehaul tractor, its RH regional hauling counterpart introduced at the Expocam trade show in Montreal, the heavy vocational HX tractor launched last year to replace the PayStar, and the new HV that replaces the WorkStar. The HV was unveiled at the recent North American Commercial Vehicle Show in Atlanta, Georgia. The HX itself represents a market segment that Navistar saw drop in half after it stopped producing 15-liter engines. “Our [13-liter model], because it was an EGR engine, we couldn’t cool it at some of the power and torque ratings we needed," he said. A little over five years later, though, Navistar says it’s back in the business. “We’re picking up share,” Mooney said, noting that three HX models were entirely new entries in the marketplace. “In the vocational segment, if you don’t have the features, if you don’t have the power and torque, they’re not buying the truck,” he said. Heavy vocational trucks represent a relatively small market compared to the sales volumes of linehaul tractors, but the segment is growing on news of booming construction and even improving sales in the oil and gas sector. “It’s not a share play. It’s more of a profit play. These are high-margin trucks. The volumes are way higher in on-highway, but the margins are much thinner,” he said. With just three weeks left in the company’s current fiscal year, Navistar is bullish on the economy in general, said Jeff Sass, Navistar’s senior vice president – North American truck sales and marketing. The company’s North American Class 8 market share inched up about 0.5%, with the share of medium-duty trucks up 3% in 2017. “I see the economy being very strong. I see the freight rates going up. I see the number of loads going up,” he said. Still, there are challenges to come – specifically in the form of Electronic Logging Devices, which as of December will be mandated for carriers operating in the U.S. Overall productivity is expected to drop 8-12% at first, and then level out at a drop of 3-5% once the rollout is complete, Sass said. “Those are the fleets that were running clean in the first place.” It could influence the market for used trucks, too. Half of U.S. freight is hauled by a truck operated by its second or third owner, Sass said, predicting further consolidation in the truck market to come. “Most of those second or third owners have not implemented ELDs yet.” In the battle for market share, Navistar executives say driver-centric features will play a significant role overall. “We know there’s a driver shortage in the industry, but we have really, really tried to make these products [the type of] products drivers want to drive,” Mooney added. “If the drivers like our trucks, the fleets are going to buy our trucks.” Driver-centric features include disc brakes that are less “grabby” than drum designs, he said. “We made disc brakes standard on the LT in June of this year, but we also saw the take rates come up.” Other technologies have been making gains of their own. Take rates for collision mitigation systems are up 50%, while the sales of replacement bumpers and fenders has reportedly dropped. Predictive cruise controls that adjust speeds and gears based on readings of topography have also seen take rates rise to 15%. The latter system, launched just over a year ago, is delivering “real world” fuel economy gains, Mooney said. The biggest technological shift, though, has come in the form of Automated Manual Transmissions (AMTs), which have seen take rates rise above 70% compared to about 40% of trucks sold just two years ago. “It was one of those technologies we knew made it easier for drivers to drive trucks,” Mooney said. The company’s proving grounds* are playing a key role in enabling new technologies, he added, referring to the facilities purchased 2.5 years ago, close to the manufacturer’s Chicago-based engineering teams. Half the trucks that run the three-mile, three-lane oval, are even made by other manufacturers. That is keeping a team of 75 employees running seven days a week, three shifts a day. * https://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/40066-navistar-buys-668-acre-indiana-proving-grounds-from-bosch/?tab=comments#comment-290400 ,

Motiv Power Systems providing two battery-electric refuse trucks to LA Green car Congress / October 10, 2017 Motiv Power Systems is deploying two battery-electric refuse trucks to the City of Los Angeles. As a continuation of a demonstration project funded by the California Energy Commission, these Class-8 ERVs use the Motiv All-Electric Powertrain to drive a Crane Carrier chassis, with an automated side-loader body built by Amrep, Inc. The trucks will be built by Amrep, Inc. in Los Angeles and are projected to be delivered in the first quarter of 2018. The City of Los Angeles Sanitation plans to run the ERVs on residential and recycling routes and expects to save as much as 6,000 gallons of fuel per year. Upon delivery, the Los Angeles ERVs bring the all-electric refuse trucks powered by Motiv to a total of three in California and four within North America. Rather than having customized vehicles provided by a variety of vendors, Motiv’s modular design allows the same All-Electric Powertrain to be used across the full range of a city’s work trucks, from Class 4 through Class 8. The use of a single electric powertrain system for all the city’s electric work trucks simplifies the maintenance and operation of a growing municipal electric vehicle fleet, reducing the cost of spare parts and training. This enables cities such as Los Angeles to expand their carbon reduction efforts through electrification of work trucks, transit buses and other diesel vehicles without placing a heavy maintenance burden on their public works departments. Similar to Motiv-powered electric refuse trucks on the road in Sacramento, the Los Angeles trucks will have a payload capacity of nine tons and 1,000 pounds per cubic yard of compaction. All Motiv ERVs are equipped with 10 battery packs, expandable to 12 packs if needed for future route expansion. With up to 212 kWh of power, the Motiv powered ERVs supply enough electricity to efficiently move the truck and power the electric hydraulics throughout the day, supporting a range between 50-80 miles, depending upon the pack size. Using the Motiv universal high power charger (480V, 50 kW), the ERV batteries will easily reach full charge overnight. Founded in 2009 and based in Foster City, CA., Motiv Power Systems designs and builds flexible and scalable All-Electric Powertrains for commercial medium and heavy-duty trucks and buses. Motiv Power Systems holds the distinction of being the only Ford eQVM-approved provider of all-electric powertrains for commercial trucks and buses. Motiv partners with existing truck builders to manufacture electric versions of their traditional fossil-fueled vehicles on their current assembly lines. Common vehicle types from these builders include work, delivery and refuse trucks, as well as school and shuttle buses. The Motiv All-Electric Powertrain is installed at the time of vehicle manufacture, similar to a natural gas or propane upfit. .

U.S. Chamber issues battle call to save NAFTA Automotive News / October 10, 2017 WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is sounding alarm bells about the need to preserve the North American Free Trade Agreement amid reports the Trump administration plans to stake out hard-line positions that could be deal breakers during the fourth round of negotiations scheduled to begin here Oct. 11. In a speech before business leaders in Mexico City on Tuesday, Chamber President Thomas Donohue called the U.S. proposals "poison pills" that would force Mexico and Canada to leave the talks and ultimately lead President Donald Trump to try and withdraw from NAFTA. "If the administration issued a withdrawal order -- which requires a six-month waiting period -- it would not be viewed by our partners ... as a negotiating tactic. Instead, it would abruptly slam the door on future negotiations because those governments have made it very clear they won't negotiate with a gun to their head. "The United States could then reasonably expect trade retaliation … higher tariffs … broken supply chains … and potentially less cooperation on other priorities like anti-terrorism and anti-narcotics efforts. And who would be hurt the most as a result? The very Americans that this administration seeks to put first," Donohue said at the annual U.S.-Mexico CEO Dialogue, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. The primary concern of automakers is what happens with rules of origin, which dictate whether goods imported from a partner nation qualify for duty-free status. The Trump administration is reportedly demanding a regional content value of 85 percent for automobiles and auto parts, up from 62.5 percent, with a new condition that half the content be produced in the United States. Automakers have fought to maintain the current content requirement for finished vehicles because some parts are sourced globally to control costs. Mexico and Canada have expressed some flexibility on the issue, but said a U.S. minimum content requirement is a nonstarter. U.S. negotiators are also pushing Mexican and Canadian red lines with proposals designed to give U.S. companies more opportunities for government contracts, as well as eliminate the use of neutral arbitration panels to settle trade disputes. The business community is also worried about a proposal for a five-year sunset provision unless all sides agree to an extension. Donohue said a termination trigger would undermine investment in all three nations because businesses would fear the uncertainty. Trump initiated the NAFTA renegotiation early this year on grounds it has led to massive outsourcing that has claimed U.S. jobs and economic opportunity. Administration officials have played up the $57 billion goods deficit with Mexico, including $68 billion for the auto sector, as the primary problem with NAFTA. But experts argue that deficits aren't an accurate way to measure benefits of a relationship that has created an integrated North American economy with improved living standards for many people. Last month, the Commerce Department released a study aimed at bolstering its case for tougher rules of origin. It showed that U.S. value-added content for automotive import from Canada and Mexico is declining, while non-NAFTA content is increasing, but Mexican officials have disputed the figures. The proposed changes to rules of origin appear more like political rhetoric than a serious solution because there is no evidence that U.S. trade officials have put in the legwork to understand how higher content values would impact trade flows, jobs and economic growth, Doreen Edelman, co-chair of the global business team at law firm Baker Donelson, said in an interview. The original NAFTA agreement took a lot of time and work by professional staff to reach the 62.5 percent content threshold "and I think it's unlikely they've put together a detailed proposal," she said. "They have to work with industry tariff line by tariff line to figure out what is feasible, otherwise it will throw the entire supply chain out of whack," Edelman said. If NAFTA disappears, she warned, manufacturers eventually might double down on investment in Canada and Mexico, as those countries expand free trade agreements around the world while the U.S. pulls back from existing deals. Donohue urged pro-trade lawmakers "to steel their resolve for what could be a big fight." The powerful business federation is working to demonstrate broad support for NAFTA by sending scores of members who have flown in town up to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to lobby lawmakers. The Chamber also sent a letter to Trump and members of Congress from 310 state and local chambers supporting a modernized NAFTA that preserves existing benefits.

Sears Canada going out of business, laying off 12,000 The Toronto Star / October 10, 2017 After struggling since June 22 to find a buyer, Sears Canada has thrown in the towel, announcing it will shut down. Once a titan of Canadian retail, Sears Canada announced Tuesday that it is going out of business, putting 12,000 people out of work and shuttering all operations nationwide. Among the first to lose their jobs will be most of the 800 people at head office near Dundas Square, who will be let go next week. Liquidation sales at stores are scheduled to begin Oct. 19 and to take 10 to 14 weeks. The chain was forced into closure after a bid by executive chairman Brandon Stranzl to save the company was unsuccessful. “Following exhaustive efforts, no viable transaction for the company to continue as a going concern was received,” according to a press release from the company issued Tuesday. “The Company deeply regrets this pending outcome and the resulting loss of jobs and store closures.” The shutdown will not affect parts of the business that have been approved for sale since Sears sought creditor protection on June 22: SLH Transports, a standalone trucking and logistics company that services Sears Canada, will continue under new ownership, as will Corbeil Electrique and certain of the Sears Canada Home Improvement brands. Sears Canada has already closed 59 stores and announced the closure of another 11, including stores at Fairview Mall and Scarborough Town Centre, since obtaining protection from creditors in June. It will be seeking court approval on Friday to liquidate all its remaining assets. According to an insider, the Stranzl deal would have saved thousands of jobs and offered relief to landlords, suppliers and consumers holding warranties. It also had financial backing. About three-quarters of the 12,000 employees are part-time. Employees were informed prior to the press release being issued.

Diesel News AU / October 2017 There is always room for another Chinese contender in the Australian truck market – the latest is JMC. We already have close to twenty different truck brands competing in the Australian market, so why not add one more? Diesel News reported on the launch of the new brand from China, JMC, late last year. Now the company has trucks on the streets and is ready to start selling product. The company behind the brand is the Jiangling Motors Group, an operation that built its first vehicles back in 1968. Over the years it has branched out from cars into commercial vehicles. A joint venture with Ford saw the company building Transit vans in China and a deal with Isuzu led to the production of N Series cabs and some truck assembly work. Now, the company is building its own brand truck and opening up markets around the world. The JMC Conquer is a familiar-enough-looking truck. It appears to be based on the Isuzu N Series, not surprising after JMC’s previous cooperation with the Japanese truck maker. The cab is clearly closely related to the current generation of the Isuzu cab. The three-litre Topanther TDCi engine is also either an Isuzu or very closely related to the one fitted to the lightest end of the N Series range, the 4HK1-TCN. Sitting in the engine compartment, the engines look very similar plus the power and torque ratings, and rpm levels, are exactly the same. There is one major difference, however, it uses SCR to clean up the exhaust emissions and meet ADR 80/03. The truck tested by Diesel is the JMC Conquer 3360. The numbers refer to the wheelbase length, at 3,360mm. Dimensions and specifications are comparable to a truck like the Isuzu NLR medium wheelbase. Walking over to the truck, it looks like just another Japanese truck off the production line. Most passers by would think it was an Isuzu or just a generic white small truck. For those with a bit more knowledge of the sector, the mirrors are the giveaway, apart from the badge on the front, of course! These mirrors are fitted on the front corner of the truck and not on the door. The driver has to look through the windscreen to see down the nearside of the truck, this is a typical domestic configuration in much of Asia. Climbing into the truck the other signs to tell us this is a Chinese truck, to look for are the fit and finish inside the cab. Here the JMC does pretty well, the floor covering seems to fit about right, door handles and step are in the right position and stable, plus the dash seems to be fitted securely. In fact, the first impressions are good. The truck is well finished and surprisingly sound. The door closed with the right noise. The key goes into the ignition and the engine starts with a familiar sound and runs evenly. Setting off is as one would expect in any small truck, and the feel is quite positive. Chinese trucks of the past have suffered with badly set up steering, braking and clutches, there is none of that here. The steering is direct, positive and easy, just as it should be when running around town and the turning circle is excellent. Braking is effective and well adjusted to feel safe for the driver and not snatch when activated. Similarly, the clutch has the right feel and bites at the right moment. All good so far. In fact, this truck does not take any getting used to. If the driver has had a go with a small Isuzu, Hino or Fuso, they will know exactly where they are, driving this truck. Controls are in the right place and things like pulling on the exhaust brake have the same effect as they do on other trucks, largely ineffective. If there is one difference it is in the sound of the braking system. Most trucks this size use some form of hydraulic/vacuum arrangement to control braking. This particular JMC model uses air brakes and driving with the window down, the driver hears a nostalgic sighing sound from the brake booster, reminiscent of the eighties. Changing gear is simple enough. The six speed box has a low first ratio, so setting off in second is the norm. The default position for the gear stick is quite central, to engage second, when starting off, the driver has to push the stick to the left and forward. The driver gets used to this in no time. If anything the action on the gear stick is just a little notchy, but this truck has only done a few hundred kilometres and can be expected to improve after a while. .

Green Diamond – Final Chapter Diesel News AU / October 2017 It’s all over, we are now at the Green Diamond – Final Chapter stage and the 1946 International K5 has found a new home. Powered by a ‘Green Diamond’ 233 cubic-inch side-valve six-cylinder petrol engine, the truck was originally owned by H & L Hamilton at Miles and is now in the possession of the lucky ticket holder. On 1 September, the Green Diamond was ready to show its true colours to the eagerly waiting public at King George Square in Brisbane. All up, $55,020 was raised from raffle ticket sales, with all proceeds going to the MND & Me Foundation. With Brisbane radio station Triple M’s Greg ‘Marto’ Martin as host, there was only one thing left to do and that was reveal the winner of the amazing Green Diamond. Trevor Fry, a Queenslander, was revealed to be as the person fortunate enough to be driving away in the classic truck. Two runners-up, Leonie Roberts and Wayne Wust, each walked away with a $2,000 BP fuel voucher. It was a fitting conclusion to a collective labour of love that spanned more than six months and saw a rusting relic transformed into an object of class and beauty. Congratulations on a job well done to all involved – it truly was a monumental effort.

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IVECO Trucks Australia / October 9, 2017 As South East Queensland’s largest independent supplier of premixed concrete and quarry products, the Neilsen Group works hard to meet the needs of its growing customer base, so when six new agitators were needed fast, it turned to IVECO to deliver with its proven ACCO 8x4. Being locally manufactured in Melbourne, lead times on ACCO models are much shorter compared to its imported competitors, meaning trucks can be put to work faster even when larger numbers are required. Despite the ACCO being a concrete industry icon with class-leading tare weight, Neilsen Group Transport Manager, Bevan Richardson, said the company had not operated ACCOs until now. “This is the first time as a company that we’ve added ACCOs to the fleet, and although it’s early days they’ve been great and haven’t missed a beat,” Bevan said. “We purchased five as a company and a sixth was bought by one of our subcontractors – we needed the trucks promptly to meet the requirements of a contract and IVECO was able to work with our tight schedule to get them on the road fast.” All six trucks are fitted with ATT eight cubic metre bowls and feature familiar industry-standard American driveline components including Cummins engine and Allison 6-speed auto transmission. The trucks also ride on front and rear airbag suspension, and keeping the eight wheelers firmly planted to the road is standard electronic stability control, vital safety feature in higher centre of gravity applications. The new ACCOs are part of a fleet of around 50 trucks, mainly comprising of agitators but also including several tippers and tankers. Prior to starting work, each vehicle is put through the company’s own pre-delivery process to ensure 100 per cent reliability from day one, according to Bevan. “The trucks need to perform from the outset, we can’t afford to let down customers through mechanical issues,” Bevan said. “We have a technician that goes through each truck and checks everything, it gives us extra peace of mind.” Similarly, when it’s time for servicing, the more streamlined the process and lower the downtime for each truck, the better for productivity according to Bevan, that’s why parts availability was another important consideration when choosing ACCO. “I did the research and I know that ACCO parts are widely available all around Australia, and importantly for us, in Queensland,” he said. “It’s no good to us having parts in New South Wales or Victoria, we need to have access to a good stock holding closer to home and I know that there are plenty of ACCO parts near us and available off the shelf.” And it’s a good thing too, so long as the trucks are performing well, the Neilsen Group tends to keep its trucks on the road for the longer term. “We have trucks on fleet that are 15 years old, we look after them well, we have a refurbishment process and they last,” Bevan said. “It’s a philosophy that suits us well and will be a good fit for the ACCOs given they already have a great reputation for longevity and that they’re extremely serviceable.” The new ACCOs are based at the company’s sites in Brendale and Carole Park and have made a good impressions since starting work with Neilsen Concrete several months ago. “So far driver acceptance of the ACCOs has been good, they’ve been reliable and the payload is what we need – the trucks are ticking all the boxes for us,” Bevan said. .

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UD Trucks Australia Press Release / October 9, 2017 UD Trucks New Quon is set to redefine the Japanese truck market in Australia, with features that have never before been seen in this heavy duty sector. Key features include improved safety such as disc brakes, pPNLT emissions compliant and smart drivability. .

Scania Group Press Release / October 9, 2017 Travelling with a container load from the Faroese capital of Torshavn out to the surrounding Faroe Islands is something that driver Lassin Weihe has been doing for more than 20 years. But these days it is with a new sense of pride that he skillfully manoeuvres his truck through the breathtaking landscape, characterised by steep cliffs, tall mountains, deep valleys and narrow fjords. Now he does the drive in a brand-new Scania S 730. Weihe, a Faroese native, has lived his entire life on this far-flung island archipelago, which lies in the North Atlantic Ocean, halfway between Scotland and Iceland. At the age of 15, he followed the age-old tradition of enlisting for the arduous work on board a fishing trawler. After four years at sea, he returned to dry land and started driving trucks. Throughout the intervening years he has driven for Faroe Ship, the leading shipping and logistics company on the Faroe Islands. The company, founded back in 1919, has terminals and warehouses on several islands and also owns the country’s largest fleet with 27 trucks for domestic transportation. New generation Scania Faroe Ship handles the majority of the seaborne exports from the Faroe Islands, most of which is fresh, frozen and dried fish and seafood. As a subsidiary of Icelandic company Eimskip, it carries goods to and from the Eimskip vessels that call at Faroese ports several times a week. Formally a self-governing nation within Denmark, the Faroe Islands are not part of the European Union and as such have their own laws, which means the obligatory EU cap on driving times does not apply. Those regulations are irrelevant anyway, since the maximum driving distance is 1.5 hours, including loading and unloading at each end as well as a friendly chat and a cup of coffee. “I do 6–7 round trips per day but I rarely work weekends. I really enjoy work except for an occasional day during winter, but that’s something you need to accept.” Faroe Ship has a mixed-brand fleet but as soon as Fleet Manager Johann Behrens set eyes on the new generation Scania, he was convinced. “I used to be a service technician and with that background I insisted that our new truck should be a Scania.” And when the choice was made, why not go for the very best? “This is an incredible truck” Some might question why the flagship S 730 is needed for the relatively short runs between the islands. Weihe dismisses all objections and knows better than most why the power is needed on the undulating Faroese roads, punctuated by steep climbs and descents. “Lately, we haven’t had much snow here but heavy winds and storms are common. Occasionally, we have to park and wait for the winds to subside. Otherwise, we might get in real trouble.” Perhaps a greater peril on the roads is the 70,000 sheep that roam nearly everywhere, outnumbering the Faroe Islands’ human population by 20,000. Although drivers are wary, collisions are not uncommon, but they are expediently settled with the payment of 3,000 Danish krone or 400 Euros. “What’s worse is that they damage the bumper, which costs much more,” says Suni Hansen, Faroe Ship’s Driving Coordinator. Meanwhile, Weihe climbs the four steps to the tall S-series cab. “This is an incredible truck. It’s difficult to fault; the truck as a whole with the handling, the comfort, well… everything makes this a great vehicle.” .

The US Postal Service Is Building a Self-Driving Mail Truck Wired / October 9, 2017 Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds—and if the United States Postal Service has its way, the robots won't stop them, either. Yes, the agency you know best for bringing you junk mail addressed to whomever lived in your apartment before you has caught robofever. It plans to put semi-autonomous mail trucks into service in just seven years, and it seems to think it can pull off a shift away from human driving without shedding mail carrier jobs. That's all according to the postal service's Office of the Inspector General, which oversees the agency and last week released a report on its plans to work autonomy into its 228,000-vehicle fleet. Those plans are already in motion: The post office has partnered with the University of Michigan to build what it’s calling an Autonomous Rural Delivery Vehicle, which it wants to launch on 28,000 rural routes nationwide as early as 2025. In this vision, the postal worker sits behind the wheel but lets the truck do the driving, sorting mail and stuffing letters and packages into mail boxes while rolling down the street. Eliminating the need to constantly park the vehicle, get out, then get back in and get back to driving would yield, the report says, “small but cumulatively significant time savings.” This being a semi-autonomous mail truck, the driver would have to be ready to take over control at all times. In the beginning, researchers say, this will be especially important while navigating from the post office to the beginning of the postal route, and while navigating intersections. The postal service reasons the experimentation is less risky on rural routes, which have less traffic and fewer pedestrians and cyclists, “and are therefore more forgiving of an imperfect AV model.” It’s exactly the reason vehicle tech developers like Tesla and Cadillac have released semi-autonomous features for highway-only driving. With wide, open, well-marked roads, it’s a much less complicated environment for a robot to navigate. According to the report, Michigan researchers will deliver their first semi-autonomous delivery truck prototype in December of this year. If all goes according to plan, the USPS will pilot 10 prototypes on rural routes in 2019, leading up to that full-scale, countrywide rural deployment between 2022 and 2025. The mail people also say they plan to look into city deliveries and building fully driverless vehicles, the kind that don't need steering wheels or pedals. You’ve Got Self-Driving Mail One reason the postal service wants robocars? They could help solve its money problems. The agency lost $5.6 billion last year, mostly because Congress demands it shell out prefunded retiree health care benefits. (The idea here is that all employees’ health care will be completely paid for by the time they retire. No other agency operates this way.) The report's authors insist they're not looking to dump human workers, and that AVs can help by trimming other costs. The agency paid about $67 million in repair and tort costs associated with vehicle crashes last year. It also shelled out $570 million for diesel fuel. If the robots perform as promised, making driving much safer and more efficient, those costs could plummet. If the USPS sticks with this plan, the jobs of the nation's 310,000 mail carriers could change, for better or worse. Once the vehicles do all the driving, the humans will be left with the sorting and the intricacies of the delivery process. Unless, of course, a robot can figure out how to do those too. And whatever the report says about protecting jobs, it's clear that the best way to cut down on employee health care costs is to cut down on employees. The Postal Service says it plans to sit down with unions to discuss the implications of this tech after the University of Michigan delivers its prototype in December. (Those unions, the National Association of Letter Carriers and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) But maybe the best reason for USPS to experiment with autonomous vehicles is to keep up with the Joneses. FedEx is investing in small autonomous vehicles that could make deliveries without the aid of human drivers. Amazon has an entire team dedicated to researching how autonomous vehicles (and drones) could transport its goods directly to customers. Google holds patents on unmanned truck delivery. DHL has posited driverless vehicles could be endlessly useful in warehousing operations, last-mile deliveries, and logistics operations. UPS has a test truck that shoots drones. Which gets us back to one final idea floated by the USPS Office of the Inspector General in the report. Mail carriers drive the same exact routes almost every day. If the service kits out its vans with the right sorts of sensors, those vans could build and constantly update the incredibly detailed 3-D maps that help self-driving cars navigate—for a price, of course. Yeah, other startups and companies have been built expressly to collect and mine mapping data—but don’t count out the letter carriers. If rain and hail can't stop them, why should the future?

Commercial Carrier Journal (CCJ) / October 9, 2017 Given that the California Air Resources Board recently awarded its lowest emissions score ever to a natural gas-powered vehicle — and not an electric vehicle — it’s odd that the state and its strict emissions regulators recently indicated a plan to follow China’s footsteps in phasing out entirely the internal combustion engine. Governor Jerry Brown is behind the push, according to CARB chair Mary Nichols. “I’ve gotten messages from the governor asking, ‘Why haven’t we done something already?’” Nichols told Bloomberg.com, referring to China’s planned phase-out of fossil-fuel vehicle sales. “The governor has certainly indicated an interest in why China can do this and not California.” Tom Quimby, editor of CCJ sister publication Hard Working Trucks, takes CARB to task on the subject in a recent blog post. He notes that CARB’s lowest emissions score ever went to a renewable natural gas vehicle produced by AMP Americas at its Fair Oaks Farm in Indiana. AMP’s -255 carbon intensity (CI) score easily beat diesel (98 CI), traditional natural gas (79 CI) and California electric (35). “It’s no secret that California has been going its own way on emissions and other big issues. That’s not the point here. The point is that the internal combustion engine, by CARB’s own admission, is far superior to that of an electric powertrain in terms of its carbon intensity score,” Quimby writes. Despite CARB’s admission, Quimby writes, the state still has a “narrow fixation on electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles” — an error in judgment by California’s powerful ARB, says Quimby.

Matt Cole, Commercial Carrier Journal (CCJ) / October 9, 2017 A recent recall affecting certain Dana Spicer D- and E-Series steer axles has prompted Navistar and Paccar to recall nearly 19,000 combined trucks. Volvo, Mack and Autocar already recalled more than 1,000 trucks due to the steer axle issue. According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration documents, the castellated nut on the steer axles may not be properly torqued, allowing the tie rod to loosen. If the tie rod loosens, it can disconnect from the steering knuckle, causing a complete loss of steering in the trucks. The recall affects trucks equipped with certain Dana D-Series and E-Series steer axles. NHTSA documents state that drivers of affected trucks would notice an audible noise and looseness in steering before the tie rod fully disconnects. The recall issued by Paccar includes approximately 17,737 model year 2016 Peterbilt and Kenworth trucks in most models. Affected Kenworth models include: K170, T170, T270, T370, T440, T470, T660, T680, T800, T880 and W900. Peterbilt trucks affected by the recall include the following models: 220, 320, 325, 330, 337, 348, 365, 367, 382, 384, 389, 389G, 567, 579 and 587. Paccar clarifies that only approximately 2 percent of trucks included in the recall are actually affected, however, the company has to check all of the Dana steer axles for improperly torqued nuts. Paccar will begin notifying truck owners on Nov. 10. Affected truck owners can contact Peterbilt customer service at 1-940-591-4000 and Kenworth customer service at 1-425-828-5000 with recall number P817-C. NHTSA’s recall number is 17V-593. Navistar is also recalling approximately 1,175 model year 2016 trucks. Affected models include: 9900i, DuraStar, LoneStar, ProStar, TerraStar, TranStar and WorkStar. The company will begin notifying owners on Nov. 17. Owners can contact Navistar customer service at 1-331-332-1590 with recall number 17507. NHTSA’s recall number is 17V-575.

Green Car Congress / October 9, 2017 At the APTA public transportation show in Atlanta, GILLIG LLC a leading manufacturer of heavy-duty transit buses, and Cummins Inc. announced a technical collaboration focused on integrating and optimizing new battery electric technology from Cummins that will soon power GILLIG electric transit buses. At APTA, Cummins is introducing new powertrain configurable for either a full battery electric vehicle (BEV) or a range extended electric vehicle (REEV) incorporating a compact engine-generator. (Earlier post.) Initial development work will focus on a new battery electric GILLIG bus with a 200-mile operating range on a single charge. The bus will feature a direct-drive traction motor with peak torque of 3500 N·m (2,582 lb-ft), and utilize energy recovered from a regenerative braking system. A package of e-accessories will be powered by the Cummins system. The initial bus deployment will use a plug-in charger. The Cummins electrified powertrain on show here at APTA represents a major leap forward for the industry, and we are delighted that GILLIG will have first access to this important zero-emissions technology. The partnership enables a close technical collaboration so we can accelerate system integration and performance optimization work to leap ahead of others in the industry. Beyond the technical development work, the partnership will also encompass the full range of 24/7 service support, diagnostics, over-the-air connectivity, flexible warranty plans and training programs ready for when these GILLIG electric buses enter service. —Amy Boerger, Cummins Vice President — Sales North America Cummins currently powers the GILLIG series of Low Floor, BRT, BRTPlus, Commuter and Trolley buses with a broad portfolio of diesel, near-zero natural gas and diesel-hybrid power systems. The addition of Cummins electrified power systems to the bus range will align with transit customers looking to introduce zero-emissions buses to their fleets while still maintaining commonality with their existing GILLIG vehicles and service support provision. .

BYD raises capacity, adds new electric models at California bus plant Automotive News / October 10, 2017 BYD Co. has hiked the annual production capacity at a California electric bus assembly plant to 1,500 units -- up from 300 previously -- to meet growing demand in North America. The latest expansion will allow the factory to build electric trucks and special purpose vehicles, as well as buses. The addition of a new wing has nearly quadrupled the plant’s floor space to 450,000 square feet. The factory now employs 800 workers, up from 300, with plans to hire 400 more. The Lancaster, Calif., plant, which opened in 2013, is BYD's first overseas EV assembly plant. It has delivered 137 electric buses in the United States and Canada. Deliveries this year total 75 buses, and customers have ordered 300 more. BYD assembles buses and other EVs in China, California, Scotland and Brazil, and is building plants in Hungary, France and Ecuador. BYD, based in the south China city of Shenzhen, is listed in Hong Kong and Shanghai. It is partly owned by U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett.

The Financial Times / October 9, 2017 Daimler Trucks is aiming to get ahead of rivals in the shift to mobility services with a simplified, self-driving fleet of lorries that can remove snow at airports and make it safe for aircraft to land. The 25-tonne, bright orange lorries are unique in the world of self-driving vehicles because they are automated rather than autonomous. This means they take a predefined route rather than making split-second decisions on direction through the use of sensors. “We don’t need artificial intelligence, we don’t need the latest technology,” said Philipp Dreyer, who heads the project. “It’s not so much autonomous in the sense of watching the surroundings and making decisions, it’s more a predefined lane that is basically stored, digitally, in the vehicle.” The technology is deliberately simpler than more sophisticated vehicles, such as the Google Waymo car with its built-in cameras, to keep costs low and make the project viable before others in 2019. The project underscores that big developments in driverless vehicles are likely to come from the transportation sector itself, rather than consumers who want the convenience of a car that navigates a city on its own. “The first movers won’t be the consumer,” said David Park, vice-president of marketing at Optimal Plus, a big data analytics company. “It’s the trucking industry, the taxi industry. They want the efficiencies and scale of continuous driving. These are industries where time, literally, is money.” In a demonstration of the technology at a private airport 90 minutes outside of Frankfurt, an operator sitting in the driver’s seat of the four-lorry convoy’s lead vehicle typed in a few commands. The lorry accelerated, turned on to the runway and began to travel at 30km an hour. Three identical, unoccupied lorries made the same moves at a safe distance behind the lead vehicle, then shifted into a staggered formation and dropped high-speed snow-clearing brushes on to the pavement in a simulation of clearing the snow away. Daimler can set the parameters within an inch of where the vehicles should drive. The project was commissioned by Frankfurt Airport, whose “winter services” of de-icing aircraft and clearing runways will cost €23m this year. The trouble is, the airport must have specialist drivers at the ready even when it does not snow. So it tasked Daimler with creating a driverless platoon that could carry out the mission, 24 hours a day. For Daimler, the challenge was an opportunity to move from selling a product to creating a solution tailor-made for a customer. The company said 40 airports of similar size around the world would be potential customers. .

A fluke, or an improvised explosive device (IED) that went off prematurely. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Raging inferno beside American Airlines plane spooks passengers RT / October 9, 2017 Dramatic footage of a raging inferno breaking out next to the terminal at Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok international airport as cargo was being loaded onto an American Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft has emerged. Passengers are seen looking on in horror as flames appear on one side of the plane. The fire broke out at approximately 5:30pm local time on Monday. The cargo loader itself reportedly caught fire, which in turn spread to the container it was placing on board the aircraft. The fire did not actually spread to the plane, however. When a loading vehicle was loading cargo onto the plane it caught on fire,” a police spokesperson said, as cited by the AFP. The loader operator sustained minor injuries according to an American Airlines spokesperson Martha Thomas, as cited by USA Today. Thomas said that despite the lack of damage to the aircraft itself, the flight was cancelled “out of an abundance of caution.” All affected passengers have already been booked on alternate flights. . .

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Reuters / October 9, 2017 Less than half the trucks exported from Navistar’s mammoth Escobedo plant in Mexico are sold in North America but the factory’s success remains tightly tied to the uncertain future of the region’s NAFTA free trade deal. Navistar’s Mexican factory, now the U.S. company’s largest worldwide, exports to around 30 countries and sells less to the United States than competitors such as Daimler AG, one of the top three truck-makers in Mexico, which sends three-quarters of its Mexican-made commercial vehicles north. But Navistar’s reliance on tariff-free imported parts shows why even Mexico manufacturers that have diversified their customer base away from the United States still fear U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to scrap NAFTA. “To lose this treaty would be to go backwards 40 years,” said Oscar Ruiz, operations director at the plant, fearing a return to an era when barriers made foreign investment and trade expensive between the two neighbors. Trade negotiators from the United States, Mexico and Canada will meet this week in Washington for a fourth round of talks on reworking NAFTA amid growing signs of an impasse between the Trump administration and the other two signatories of the pact. Mexican officials warn that Trump is leading the region towards a protectionist trade war with his “America First” policy, flirting with major curbs on commerce. Nowadays, over half the original parts for the vehicles made at Navistar’s 250 acre (100 hectare) site in the northern state of Nuevo Leon arrive duty-free from the United States and Canada in hundreds of trailers every day, Ruiz said. Higher tariffs on imports or reduced trade flows would raise the cost of production and of exporting to the United States. That would make trucks more expensive for all Navistar’s customers, experts consulted by Reuters said. Navistar, for example, uses Alabama-made Cummins engines in its International Prostar and LT heavy tractors. Without NAFTA, importing the engines would likely cost 10 percent more, based on World Trade Organization tariffs, according to Manuel Nieblas, a manufacturing consultant at Deloitte Mexico. With engines representing up to 45 percent of the $130,000 cost of a Prostar truck, that tariff alone could add around $5,800 to the final price. Prices would also rise for most of the up-to 12,000 parts used in a Navistar truck, both due to the tariffs and slower border-customs checks if trade were to be more regulated. A ‘LOGISTIC SPRINGBOARD’ Aside from higher prices for imported parts, ending NAFTA would likely impose a 4 percent tariff on top of the total value of the Class 8 truck 18-wheeler for export to the United States. Still, that might be slight enough for U.S. consumers to absorb, or for the company to shave off its margins. And Navistar’s strategy of using Mexico’s low costs and multiple free trade deals to export to markets from Saudi Arabia to Australia could soften the blow of any tougher export rules for the United States, Mexican Chief Executive Carlos Pardo said. “More than ever I believe Mexico is a logistic springboard, where on top of a qualified work force and reasonable production costs, logistically it has created the connections to supply any part of the world,” Pardo said in Navistar’s Mexico City headquarters. While 98 percent of trucks exported from Mexico go to the United States or Canada, U.S. truckmaker Kenworth, China’s Giant and Korean automaker Kia all have a similar strategy of building in Mexico to export to countries other than the United States. Scrapping NAFTA might not hurt exports to robust European economies, but those to Latin America, Navistar’s top market after North America, would become much more complicated, said Salvador Pasquel, an automotive expert at Baker McKenzie. Business with Colombia, which in 2011 was the biggest market in Latin America for U.S. truck companies after Mexico, helps illustrate what could happen if NAFTA collapses. Sales plummeted after vehicles got more expensive because of changes in Colombia’s trade policy, including a tax of 15 percent on the value of new imported heavy trucks. “We went from exporting $817 million in heavy tractors in 2011 to barely $1 million in 2015,” said Miguel Elizalde, president of Mexico’s truck and bus business chamber, Anpact. One fear for Mexico-based companies is that increased costs there would boost Latin American sales of trucks made in Brazil, whose vehicle industry belongs to the Mercosur free trade bloc. “If it’s harder for Mexico to place its products in Latin America, the big economy that could provide those cars and trucks would surely be Brazil,” said Baker McKenzie’s Pasquel. The worries over NAFTA coincide with a recovery in Navistar’s U.S. market. After a long stretch of depressed sales, orders for Class 8 trucks in the United States soared for the fourth consecutive month in September, according to preliminary data from industry forecaster FTR. (here) Analysts expect a strong year in 2018. Although Lisle, Illinois-based Navistar posted a second quarter loss, its share price has recovered lately as the company turns itself around after a disastrous bet on a costly and unsuccessful smog-reduction system. Last year, Volkswagen’s truck unit said it was buying a stake in Navistar as part of an alliance in which the two companies will share technology. In Mexico, growth of truck-making under NAFTA has been rapid. In 1993, a year before the deal took effect, Mexico exported 1,040 heavy vehicles. Last year, it sold 106,161 such vehicles abroad, according to Anpact figures. Navistar’s Escobedo plant was producing three vehicles a day when it opened in 1998. It now makes 160, with capacity for almost double that, factory manager Ruiz said. The company is under no illusion it could maintain those volumes without NAFTA, though the plant recently decided to hire 150 new workers because of recovering U.S. demand. “We could survive, yes, but the question is, at what level?” Ruiz said. .

International Truck Press Release / October 5, 2017 International Trucks NACV 2017 Press Conference from Atlanta. .

Cummins Press Release / October 4, 2017 Cummins celebrates 50 years of innovation at the Cummins Technical Center (CTC) in Columbus, Indiana. You can learn more about the CTC's 50 years at http://social.cummins.com/cummins-technical-center-celebrates-50-years-innovation/ .