Rocky road 05 June 2013

As trade shows go, the BAUMA event in Munich is high on the Richter scale. Ian Norwell talks to Iveco's Alessandro Mortali about Fiat's new construction trucks

When a single exhibition stand takes five months to build and populate with exhibits, and costs €30m, it's got to be a serious show. Emerging out of the ground every three years in Munich, the BAUMA construction trade fair is such an event – and that massive investment was made by Liebherr, which clearly makes more than concrete mixer bodywork.

The construction sector is an important part of Iveco's business and its senior vice president for the heavy range Alessandro Mortali was pragmatic about the state of the industry. "It's a mixed picture, with Europe pretty flat and the southern regions badly depressed, but something must improve sooner or later," he mused frankly. However, his global view does allow some optimism and, even though Iveco's traditional markets across North Africa are "difficult", China and Russia are "good".

Iveco brought its revised Trakker construction truck range to BAUMA and, like the Stralis Hi-Way, it uses the updated Cursor eight- and 13-litre engines that have declined EGR (exhaust gas recirculation), instead relying on Hi-eSCR (high-efficiency selective catalytic reduction) to achieve Euro 6 limits. "The AdBlue dosing module is now far more intelligent and it can adapt to a wider variety of loads," stated Mortali.

"Our research centre in Ulm has been concentrating on cutting AdBlue consumption rates and we are also aiming at a DPF (diesel particulate filter) with a service interval of over one million kilometres," he added. "It's work in progress." Early views of Euro 6 tagged the DPF as a significant extra maintenance item. However, quoted intervals for cleaning (usually by taking a service exchange unit) seem to be stretching considerably – now possibly to the point where the issue may go away.

Meanwhile, the new Trakker itself has the two cab configurations of Hi-Land and Hi-Track. The former has the traditional tipper day cab, while the latter brings sleeper and even hi-roof versions to the sector. Iveco is continuing the trend set by other manufactuers for more spacious and luxurious cabs in the construction arena.

That said, its telematics have been further refined, too, with the Iveconnect driver assistance and fleet management system now far easier to navigate. "The human element is the most variable aspect of any truck's operating cycle," observed Mortali. "The mechanical items stay the same. So driver assistance devices are more important than ever, and [manufacturers] need to understand their customers' differences. There's a very big variance between the needs of a UK fleet of 50—100 trucks using professional drivers and a European one of over 1,000. There are sadly a high percentage of drivers in these mega-fleets who have no passion for the job."

Iveco is also searching for other incremental cost advantages in the drivetrain, and Mortali confirmed that the Italian manufacturer has been working with ZF – which it deems its transmissions partner – on the TraXon dual-clutch transmission. "We do see certain benefits, but the fast-shift system that we are using is almost as good, without the extra weight," he asserted.

What about the big kit? Like many of the global players, Fiat Industrial has a variety of brands it can call upon. So rather than stretch the limits of the Trakker into the brutal end of the construction and mining worlds, it turns to the Astra brand, with BAUMA stand premiering the HHD9 8x6 rigid chassis with a a gvw of "more than 60 tonnes".

This is suitably vague for the kind of operations where a weighbridge is not seen as a necessary piece of equipment. A walk around the chassis leaves you in no doubt of Fiat's intentions. A Cursor 13-litre engine delivering 540bhp, heavy duty Kessler axles and an extra-heavy-duty ZF Steyr VG 2700 transfer box form the guts of a typical spec.

Author
Ian Norwell

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Iveco

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