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Mack: Path to Electrification is Not Straight to Linehaul

Mack Trucks continues to see a healthy future for diesel engines, even as alternatives like electrification begin to emerge.

“Diesel today, it's performing extremely well. It's cleaner than it's ever been, it's robust, it's versatile,” said Roy Horton, director – product strategy, during a briefing in Oakland, California. As for talk about electric trucks? “It's almost a little bit of an uphill battle there.”

Electrification is “on the bubble, and it's something everyone is looking at,” he said, admitting that the recent unveiling of Elon Musk's Tesla Semi attracted attention. “It's definitely going to be part of our future.” Just not for longhaul. Not right away.

Mack believes the earliest adopters of electrification will be operations with the chance to charge at a home base and not depend on general infrastructure for fuel. That includes refuse, local delivery, and public transportation fleets.

Next would be applications with fixed routes where infrastructure is established but longer ranges are less of a concern. That opens opportunities for local distribution, regional haulers, and select vocational segments.

Longhaulers would be the last to use the trucks, drawing on power from secured infrastructure.

For its part, Mack has already been working with electrification in its own right. It unveiled a range-extended LR refuse truck in 2016, and a diesel-electric hybrid drayage truck. With Siemens it is also experimenting with the idea of electric highways, with vehicles drawing on the power of wires strung along the routes. The company is producing electric buses, too.

Mack will focus on electrification where it's “commercially viable”, stressed Jonathan Randall, Mack's senior vice president – North American sales. As for new players such as Nikola Motors and Tesla? “Competition is good.”

Mack's work with alternative power sources hardly ends there. It already has experience with biodiesel, ethanol, hydrogen, natural gas, propane, and Dimethyl Ether (DME).

“We have, ...Read the rest of this story

New Speakers Lined Up for Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week

The organizers of the 13th annual Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week have announced three new speakers for the four-day conference at the Mirage in Las Vegas.

HDAW is a business-to-business executive conference presented by a joint operating committee of industry leaders of the North American independent heavy-duty aftermarket industry. The event's 2018 theme is “People-Partners and Profits” and the new speakers will focus on different aspects of that theme.

Speaking on the “profit” portion will be Jim Pancero, who will detail selling philosophies, processes and structures to increase the competitive advantage and profitability of company sales teams during HDAW 2018 Aftermarket Briefings. His experience influencing and guiding top performers selling complex competitive products and business services from a "business to business" perspective will help HD distributors understand and implement innovative marketing and sales plans for their businesses. Pancero has conducted over 3,100 speeches, in-depth seminars or consulting days for more than 600 companies in over 80 different industries.

Thomas Nestor, best-selling author, professional speaker, and founder of Leadership Today, has also been added to the speaker lineup during the Aftermarket Briefings educations session. Focusing on the "partner" element of HDAW 2018's theme, Nestor will show the importance of building strategic partnerships within the HD Aftermarket industry, allowing companies to see the hidden value of working together to provide targeted products and services to customers to improve their businesses. Nestor will also share best practices in building strategic partnerships and the six human needs that must be met for success.

Lastly, Colin Gold, the founder of Gold Level Hospitality, a consulting company focused on empowering teams within organizations to create experiences far beyond customer's expectations, will be contributing to the Aftermarket Briefings portion of the Tuesday education sessions.

Gold will focus on the "people" theme of HDAW 2018, illustrating how companies can create positive work environments by ...Read the rest of this story