The Future Looks Familiar for Volvo’s SuperTruck
Volvo’ SuperTruck owes more than a passing nod to current VNL styling with highly aggressive, full-length aerodynamics.
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Volvo’ SuperTruck owes more than a passing nod to current VNL styling with highly aggressive, full-length aerodynamics.
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You’d be forgiven for being a little intimidated, frightened, even, driving a one-of-a-kind truck worth $2 million through heavy traffic around Greensboro, NC. But, in reality, the experience isn’t nerve-racking, at all.
For starters, if you’re a regular Joe, like me, $2 million is just an abstract number. I mean, I realize it’s a lot of money. But I have no baseline comparison I can use to relate that sum to anything in my life. You know, it’s not like I’ll have to sell my 14th century Italian villa and vineyard in Tuscany to cover the damages if I wreck the thing.
Even more to the point, it turns out that driving a $2 million SuperTruck isn’t really all that revolutionary an experience once you climb up inside the cab, turn the key and start heading down the road. That’s because this truck, designed by Volvo Trucks North America in a joint product with significant funding courtesy of the United States government, is not a quantum leap forward as far as Class 8 long-haul tractors go.
For those who came in late, the SuperTruck Project is a holdover from the Obama Administration, which provided federal dollars to trucking OEMs to help them develop advanced technologies that can improve freight efficiency and fuel economy for the next generation of U.S.-built Class trucks. The federal dollars serve as a way to encourage OEMs to pursue new and emerging fuel efficiency technologies that real-world market forces wouldn’t ordinarily allow them to spend private dollars researching on such a large scale – or actually put on the road in a concept truck.
Volvo’s SuperTruck made its public debut in Washington at the Department of Energy last September. And earlier this week, …Read the rest of this story
