IAA Hannover Commercial Vehicle Show 2014 Report (Part 1)
Daimler's autonomous truck and MAN's new engines on display
2014/11/06
- The IAA Slogan: "Driving the Future"
- Daimler: World's first fully autonomous truck, Future Truck 2025 Concept
- MAN: New top range, Euro VI-compliant engine for heavy-duty trucks
The IAA Slogan: "Driving the Future"
Intention of the organizer, the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) for holding the Hannover Show this year -To prepare for promoting industry-wide technical innovation suited to both developed and emerging countries and for achieving targets.
- The IAA poster represents environmental friendliness with blue color and data highway as a symbol of the link to sustainable and efficient distribution.
The IAA is the world's largest commercial vehicle show and the 65th IAA gathered 2,066 exhibitors from 45 countries worldwide, with 322 world premieres.
Among them, exhibitors from countries outside Germany accounted for 59%, or more than 1200 companies. By country, Chinese companies ranked top, followed by those in Italy and Turkey (mainly small- to large-sized parts suppliers).
The IAA is held in every even-numbered year and this year's venue was the Hannover Messe as usual. The site has an exhibition space 3.5 times larger than that of the Tokyo International Exhibition Center.
Unlike the Tokyo Motor Show, the IAA is a complete Business-to-Business show with its focus on freight companies as well as their drivers, families, and owners of trucks. Each automaker intends to provide opportunities for visitors to increase familiarity with and understanding of trucks, as symbolized by children freely operating steering wheels and switches on truck driver's seats.
Market data (from VDA)
- In the European Union's internal market: Transportation by truck accounts for 73%. - In 2013, on-road freight transportation in Germany amounted to 453.4 billion ton kilometers. In the German market, sales of trucks over 6 tons increased by 3%. In particular, the sales totaled in 34,000 units between January and May 2014, and increased by 12% year-over-year by the end of May. - In 2013, there was the last-minute demand for trucks before the Euro VI emission standard was introduced. - Daimler sold 516,000 units of light- to heavy-duty commercial vehicles worldwide between January and August 2014. Notably, the company sold 47,000 units of heavy-duty vehicles thanks to the rush demand before the introduction of Euro VI standard in January 2014. - These figures reveal the convenience of trucks for door-to-door transportation.
Keywords (typical promotions by leading participating manufacturers)
- TCO: 'Total Cost Ownership' TCO evaluates balance between life cycle cost and profitability. Each company publicized the advantages of their products and the overall outcome arising from their technologies and services to improve their customers' profitability. An example of such improvement is the maximized vehicle operating time (Each company tries to achieve less non-operating time through timely provision of services).
Euro VI, Efficient: Environmental friendliness, low fuel consumption, exhaust gas reduction, efficiency, and customers' profitability in relation to the new Euro VI exhaust emission standards introduced in January 2014.
IT Connect, Telematics: Transition from transportation by only drivers operating on their seats to transportation using external IT communication. The transition will improve transportation conditions and quality as a whole. Telematics and other IT tools help reduce operation costs and enhance economy of transportation ("online transportation environment" and "connected trucks" are the popular key words.).
GPS Cruise Control: This system controls the vehicle speed according to predicted topographical data obtained by GPS to improve fuel efficiency and driving safety.
- Autonomous: Autonomous driving assistance systems for vehicles to detect and analyze traffic conditions for prediction and judgment on their own. Such systems are effective to optimize driving conditions and reduce fuel consumption as well as to improve safety, comfort, and economy of transportation. Some systems even enables a driver to control steering remotely via tablets and smartphones.
- Extended vehicle sizes and improved aerodynamic characteristics: Longer truck sizes mean increased payload and ecological efficiency. Moreover, higher aerodynamic characteristics and energy efficiency lead to sustainable reduction of fuel consumption and CO2 emission.
- Compressed natural gas (CNG): Higher gasoline fuel costs prompt automakers to use CNG to reduce truck operation costs and CO2 emissions. CNG products were exhibited by Daimler, MAN, Scania, and Iveco.
The following report is organized on manufacturer basis. Part 1 outlines exhibitions by Daimler and MAN, while Part 2 summarizes those by Volvo, Scania, Renault, and other companies.
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