Tag Archives: Paccar

CES 2023 – MESSAGE 6 – TRUCK NEWS

CES is all about new technologies. I mentioned already the many new personal car concepts. But there is also news about trucks for the present and the future.


PACCAR

One of the exhibiting companies is PACCAR. They make trucks under the brand names Kenworth, Peterbilt and European brand DAF.

Photo: he PACCAR booth, showing Kenworth, Peterbilt and DAF

Self driving is not only for private cars. One of the trucks shown at CES is also ‘self driving’. There is a lot of sensors, camera’s and radar on such a truck. I wonder or they still have a place to put on a CB antenna.

At some point there will be a person driving such an autonomous driving truck and we all want to talk to colleague’s.
But before there is autonomous driving we have to get used to driver assistance technologies, also for trucks.

EV TRUCKS

Photo: Self driving truck from brand Peterbilt

For the moment the biggest switch is to produce trucks that have no CO2 emissions. There are two options in the trucking industry. Paccar was showing an E-truck from Kenworth. For now this model has a range of approx. 250+ kilometers and a top speed of 110 km/hour.
More info about Kenworth EV truck T680E can be found on their website:

Photo: Kenworth EV truck model T680E

Driving an EV truck is one thing, but you also need chargers for trucks. The battery can store nearly 400 kW and can be charged with 150 kW charge rate. For charging you need chargers and Paccar is offering also EV charging stations.

Photo: Paccar EV-truck charging system

Paccar does not only produce fixed chargers. They also make a mobile EV charger. Can be used for trucks that need charging when no charger is at that spot. Or think about a hotel or parking garage that offers a ‘mobile’ charging service for private cars.
I would love to have this thing at home as a battery for my solar panels !!!!

Photo: Mobile EV-charger

H2 TRUCKS

Also from the brand Kenworth, they showed a ‘Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle’.
These types are also called ‘H2 hydrogen’ models . The range of this model is approx. 350 km.

Photo: Kenworth H2 Hydrogen truck

The hydrogen tank is placed after the drivers cabine. Let us hope these tanks are well protected and the used techniques make sure that they can not explode.

Photo Hydrogen tank placed behind the truck cabine

It is clear that the market for personal cars will change dramatically in the next 10 years. But also the truck market will have incredible changes.

The Hydrogen and EV trucks from Paccar are already available and driving on USA roads.

Take a look at what the truck industry has to offer already at this moment.

Kenworth:  https://kenworth.com/innovation/zero-emissions/

Peterbilt: https://www.peterbilt.com/innovation/technology

Paccar: https://paccarinnovation.com/

Photo: The future for trucks is on the move

DAF TRUCKS AT CES IN LAS VEGAS

One of the big truck brands in Europe is the Dutch brand DAF. Years ago the American company PACCAR purchased the DAF company. Paccar also owns famous USA truck brands like Kenworth and Peterbilt.

PACCAR is Paccar, Kenworth, Peterbilt and DAF

At CES, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Paccar showed some projects they are working on. Basically there are two main directions they go for now:


Medium Duty, Heavy Duty and Autnomous Trucks
  • 1. PRODUCING ZERO EMISSION TRUCKS

They work on solutions for the truck segments ‘medium duty’ and ‘heavy duty’. There are solutions already available or these will be available soon. At the convention they showed an electric garbage truck that had zero emission.

Electric Garbage Truck

But also for the heavy duty trucks they are developing zero emission solutions. It is interesting to see the number of cables and their size that are used to bring the power from the batteries in large boxes to the electric motor. Paccar calls their system the ’Paccar integrated Power Train’.

  • 2 RESEARCH TO AUTONOMIC DRIVING

Paccar does not yet believe in trucks without a driver. They do research in the State of Washington for full autonomous truck driving. They need to do this to get all the possible knowledge for driver supporting systems and potential autonomous driving for trucks.. Even if that will be used only on main roads and not in the cities or on company sites.

AUTONOMOUS DRIVING IN GENERAL

There is a lot of writing and talking about autonomous driving. But imagine a car or a truck in a city like Amsterdam with small streets and badly parked cars. But also the thousands of bikes and pedestrians. Many of these do not care too much about traffic lights. It is already difficult for a human to drive there without having an accident. For an autonomous car it is totally impossible.

So driver support systems are already available and will get better in the future. Driving a Tesla I personally experience that the systems gets better with each update. But full autonomous cars without a driver is a very long way to go.