Capacity Trucks Introduces Sabre Terminal Tractor at TMC

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Transport Topics / February 17, 2015

Capacity Trucks showed a new terminal tractor for warehouse, port and intermodal operations while another terminal tractor maker, Kalmar Ottawa, said its T2 terminal tractor helped the company to its second-best year ever.

The Sabre, as Capacity Trucks’ vehicle is named, was rolled out Feb. 16 at the annual meeting of American Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council here.

President Scott Lord told Transport Topics that he estimates the terminal tractor market at 4,500 to 5,000 units per year in North America, although “that’s rough — nobody tracks it, [and] there’s no registration data,” he said.

Capacity’s primary U.S. market for terminal tractors is warehouse and distribution, with about 60% to 70%, Lord said. Ports make up the rest, though they account for a greater percentage of its overseas markets, which is some 15% to 20% of its sales, he said. Capacity is based in Longview, Texas.

About 20% to 30% of Sabre’s market is for operations that require trucks to travel on roads to terminals or warehouses. The rest are off-road.

The average price of an on-road terminal tractor would be in the mid-$90,000 range, Lord said, but “these things get so customized, depending on the customer’s needs” that they can cost much more than that.

“What we tried to do with this truck is to focus on the entire cost of operations for our customers,” he said, adding that part of the reason the truck is called the Sabre is because its goal is to slash the cost of operations.

Capacity Trucks plans to have its current TJ5000 model phased out by June with Sabre production rolled in by then, “depending on customer orders,” he said.

Separately, Kalmar’s T2 terminal tractor, released at last year’s TMC show, went into full production in the fourth quarter of 2014, Bob McTernan, marketing and dealer operations manager, said Feb. 17 at the company's display booth.

“It’s proven very popular,” McTernan said. “We’ve had in excess of 3,000 units of production [and] more than doubled our daily output” as it transitioned from its previous tractor product.

For more information: http://capacitytrucks.com/sabre-truck/meet-sabre

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Looks like it would do the trick but it's a face only a mother could love...

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Capacity Truck shows off new Sabre tractor

Fleet Owner / February 16, 2015

Terminal tractor manufacturer Capacity Trucks highlighted its all-new Sabre at the 2015 Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) annual meeting, which will eventually replace the company’s current TJ (short for “tractor jockey”) 5000, 7000, and 9000 models.

During a press conference here at TMC, Capacity’s President Scott Lord noted that the company put the new Sabre – introduced back in January this year – through the equivalent of three years’ worth of durability testing at the Bosch Proving Grounds in South Bend, IN, with focused testing on doors and other components handled in Buchanan, MI.

“We used 110,000 psi [pounds per square inch] military grade steel for the Sabre’s [c-channel] frame rails; steel strong enough for us to offer a 10-year structural frame warranty,” Lord noted.

Testing included 96,000 door opening and closing cycles, along with 96,000 boom hooking cycles. That test exposed the boom to 5.8 gravities worth of force, Lord pointed out; so much force that the testing equipment itself actually broke under the strain.

He added that the new Sabre is engineered to deliver the lowest total cost of operation or TCO to fleets via improved durability, reliability, serviceability, and especially driver ergonomics.

“We’ve been able to ‘tune’ this truck so the driver won’t feel bumps,” Lord (at right) explained, via the use of airbags under the cab and the vibration dampening design of the tractor’s seat. “We’ve also made some subtle cab changes, too; making the cab wider and raising their height of gauge display.”

He also noted that Capacity offers a wide range of customization for its “yard mules” so pricing for the new Sabre model will vary. Yet the base cost for an on-road Sabre configuration will remain the same as the TJ models it’s replacing: roughly around $95,000.

Capacity is a division of Allied Specialty Vehicles (ASV), a U.S.-based manufacturer that produces between 18,000 and 19,000 emergency vehicles, small buses, terminal trucks, recreation vehicles and street sweepers annually.