June 2015 Volume 35, Issue 6
TRUCK NEWS Ready for PC-11?
A new heavy-duty engine oil category is just around the corner. Here’s what you need to know about it.
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mDrive goes heavy
Mack’s mDrive HD transmission is ready for heavy-haul and construction applications.
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More roundabouts are popping up in Ontario. Are they designed to accommodate heavy trucks?
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Round we go
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Canada’s Trucking Newspaper Since 1981
Driving a SuperTruck
Driving an $80-million truck is a tad unnerving, but surprisingly, it drove much like any other.
Multi-modal mega-move An Ontario fleet wins a global award for its handling of an oversize load By James Menzies TORONTO, ONTARIO For Precision Specialized Division, it was just another day at the office. Asked to transport 212 loads – six of which were extra large smoothing reactors measuring 15 feet wide and more than 16 feet tall with each weighing 110,000 lbs – from Toronto to sites in Central Alberta, the company immediately went to work devising a plan. After spending more than 130 hours conducting a feasibility study for the move, the province of Ontario – citing spring weight restrictions and construction in Northern Ontario – denied their permit, forcing Precision to become more imaginative. More than 400 hours of additional planning later, the company had come up with Plan B, and after executing it flawlessly, the move garnered Precision a global award for Hauling Job of the Year (under 160,000 lbs net) from the Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association (SCRA). “In terms of the amount of loads, Continued on page 70
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The Freightliner Inspiration Truck is the world’s first road-legal autonomous truck. But officials say it still needs a driver.
This truck can drive itself A spectacular display on the Hoover Dam ushered in what could potentially be a new era for trucking
By James Menzies LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
W
ith a record-breaking light show displayed upon the towering Hoover Dam, Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) on May 5 heralded the arrival of its Freightliner Inspiration Truck – the world’s first road-legal autonomous truck. Earlier in the day, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval issued Daimler the first licence to operate its autonomous truck technology in the state. “Today is history. It is the next step in revolutionizing the way we move goods and services…Eventually this will transform the future of commercial transportation. Today will be a day we will all look back on and remember,” Gov. Sandoval said in thanking DTNA for “looking at the impossible and finding a safe way to make it possible.” “The autonomous vehicle technology we are showcasing in the Freightliner Inspiration Truck will help reduce accidents, improve fuel consumption, cut highway congestion, and safeguard the environment,” added Dr. Wolfgang Bernhard, head of Daimler Trucks globally. The Freightliner Inspiration Truck – still disguised by hood bonnet – then whisked away Sandoval and Bernhard.
Journalists visiting from around the world were later that night taken to the Hoover Dam, where a spectacular light show preceded the complete revealing of the Inspiration Truck atop the dam. The projection – at 1.17 million lumens – earned Freightliner the Guinness World Record for the highest light output projection ever. “The Hoover Dam provides the ideal setting for a debut as significant to the trucking industry as this. Not only was it built primarily using trucks, but it signifies inspiration like few other structures in the world. To show the significance and opportunities of autonomous driving functions for the global trucking industry we were willing to go ways that people did not dare to think about before,” said Dr. Bernhard. “The Inspiration Truck’s debut was made even more notable with Freightliner’s Guinness World Record of the highest light output projection ever.” The launch was simulcast on FreightlinerInspiration.com, where a collection of videos are now available to view. The Inspiration Truck debuts Daimler’s Highway Pilot autonomous truck technology, demonstrated last year at Continued on page 33
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