What is the Future Development of Trucks?

As we all know, the United States is the world's largest producer and user of automobiles. All kinds of roads are accessible, with an average of 1.3 people a car, known as the "country on wheels". Because there are few railways and the dense road network has become an important vein of transportation in the United States. A large number of commodity transportation relies on heavy trucks. With the sustained growth of the American economy in recent 10 years, the truck freight industry is also developing rapidly. Therefore, in this context, truck technology in the United States has also developed rapidly.

Since 1984, American Truck Association Technology and Maintenance Council have been devoted to studying the future trend of truck development. They have put forward an opinion on truck development in the future. From it, we can clearly see that truck manufacturers and other companies in the industry have a reasonable expectation for future truck development in the next 5-10 years or even longer. In summary, it includes eight technical characteristics.

Feature 1: Multi-technology optimization for better fuel economy

More than half of the teams surveyed by the Technical and Maintenance Council of the American Truck Association believe that we will see the fuel consumption of traction trucks reach 9 miles per gallon (equivalent to 26L per 100 kilometers), even better than that. Some fleets have already reached that level. Meanwhile, transportation companies in the United States say they want to see fuel consumption. It's a 10-15 mile/gallon tractor (relative to 15.7-23.5L per hundred kilometers). And they say it's not impossible in the tractor industry.

Truck engine idle parking function will continue to develop and continue to improve and optimize. We can even see the widespread use of solar idle parking system.

At the same time, regardless of fuel economy or driver comfort requirements, more automatic transmission will be installed on trucks in the future. The survey predicts that more than 60% of 8 types of vehicles will use AMT, and more than 15% of 8 types of trucks and more than 70% of 6 and 7 types will use hydraulic automatic transmission more and more.

Auxiliary power plant, auxiliary heater device, electric air conditioning system and automatic start-stop battery management system are now widely used, and will continue to be used in trucks in the future. In the survey, battery-driven, diesel-driven and even fuel cell-driven systems are believed to play a major role in the future.

Feature 2: More optimized vehicles and engines are more efficient

Logistics fleets are realizing that they can choose smaller, more powerful and more suitable vehicles to achieve fuel savings and lower pre-purchase costs, and this trend will continue to develop. For example, the current 13L-15-liter engine is used on 8-grade Road Trucks (with a total vehicle weight rating of 14969 kg or more), and they hope that engine engineers can develop 11L engines to achieve the same efficiency. In medium-sized trucks, many fleets are gradually choosing lower-grade vehicles. People are re-examining and evaluating their power needs for trucks. They used to buy heavy trucks to meet adequate power requirements. Now they are considering how to choose more fuel-efficient vehicles for different transportation routes.

This is a trend of choosing more suitable trucks for different working conditions in order to make the best use of everything. Make sure that the load level of the vehicle is 90%. More trucks are more suitable to choose. If it comes to the peak season, you can choose to rent the truck you need.

Feature 3: Many new technologies are more durable

The survey shows that trucks will be more reliable in the future, and the oil change cycle will continue to increase. It is predicted that the oil change cycle will exceed 60,000 miles (equivalent to 96,560 kilometers). More and more teams will choose pneumatic disc brakes, which require very little maintenance compared with traditional drum brakes.

In addition, 80% or more of the vehicles will use tire pressure monitoring and inflation system. And it will equip with tread pattern depth sensor, to help extend the tire life cycle, while saving fuel.

Electrical equipment will continue to improve, and full-LED lighting is already being used on Nevista's Horizon truck.

Using computer technology and remote information processing system of vehicle electronic inspection may play the greatest role in the normal running time of vehicles. In the future, a more perfect truck remote information processing network will be built, through which vehicle data can be analyzed and judged to make the vehicle run more efficiently.

Feature 4: Fuel diversity substitution energy and gasoline use

Volvo said that alternative fuels would be very popular in the next few years, especially natural gas, and believed that ethane and dimethyl ether fuels would be future choices. Hybrid power, electric power, propane, liquefied natural gas, etc. will be used to drive future trucks.

Feature 5: Cab interior optimization is more comfortable

Future dashboards will incorporate more driving technology information. Flanner and Peter Bilt have indicated that the concept car is equipped with a removable tablet computer that can display virtual instruments, navigation and instantaneous fuel consumption and dangerous driving alerts. And it can be removed when the vehicle is not running and electronic system checks and other drivers are willing to drive.

With the increasing shortage of drivers facing transportation companies, manufacturers are doing more technical research to improve the driving comfort and convenience of their latest trucks. They will pay more attention to ergonomics. We can see that more driving comfort configurations, such as BOSE ride system, use "intelligent induction" technology to improve driving comfort and reduce driving fatigue.

Feature 6: Multi-technology integration is more secure

We will see more high-tech security systems being used in trucks. For example, collision prevention system, lane departure warning system, vehicle rollover stability control, etc., from the perspective of social security responsibility, the federal government will also strengthen the requirements of truck safety.

Feature 7: More Flat-Headed Medium Truck Applications with Long Head and Middle Card in Cold Conditions

Nissan Fusang truck forecasts that more flat-headed medium-sized trucks will be widely used in urban transportation. In fact, at present, more and more low-head middle trucks are widely used. Compared with traditional long-head trucks, low-head trucks have better mobility, sight range and urban transport efficiency.

Feature 8: Connecting vehicles and highways to drive or achieve in formation

The survey also provides in-depth research into vehicle communications, vehicle and communication infrastructure technology. And they believe that vehicle-to-infrastructure communications are highly possible. The feasibility of wireless communication between tractor and trailer is being investigated, and vehicle-to-vehicle communication is considered to be very possible.