With the launch of the new S-Way model, which has been announced as one of the four contenders for the Truck of the Year Australasia 2023 award, Iveco is bringing the truck brand’s range on the Australian market up to date, is this new model range the way forward for Iveco?
The criteria for being a contender is that this model has made a contribution, to the standards of safety and efficiency of transport of goods by road, taking into account the particular characteristics of the Australasian truck market.
The last five years have seen big changes for Iveco in Australia, with the end of one of the longest selling truck models in Australian history and the ceasing of truck production at the iconic Dandenong assembly plant, originally, built by International Harvester.
The new reality for Iveco in Australia is one of rebuilding a truck brand, importing global models and adapting them to the Australian trucking industry conditions in a way which can bring the latest developments in Europe, direct to Australia, without the long delay between a truck launch in Europe and the commencement of production here.
As new models are being developed in Europe, the Australian team can work on the adaptations required here and then build the new models in a synchronised program in Europe, with the assembly plant in Madrid assembling the trucks for Australia alongside the European versions.
The first model coming from the new Iveco organisation is the S-Way, a complete model range which has been available in Europe for some time. This selection of models will be added to as Iveco refines the process and can offer a similarly full range, as it did in the past.
“We had to make some decisions about what we were doing in regards to our local factory and we went through that process quite seriously,” says Michael May, Iveco Australia New Zealand Managing Director. “We were looking as to how we could quickly get ourselves up to speed with the latest technology in Europe and the company collectively made the decision that the best way to do that was to bring in the product that we built for the whole world, South America, Europe and our region, Asia, Australia and the Pacific, from the Madrid plant.
“It was a challenging time for us, but we did a really good job with the sundowning of the factory in the right way and it’s given us an exciting opportunity to align. Now we’re aligned with the latest product that’s coming out of Europe.
“We haven’t lost the engineering and the validation teams that we have down under. We’ve built a good strong core of engineers, and we’re going to continue to grow that. We’ve got a Customer and Innovation Centre, in Keysborough, Victoria, which we have moved into.”
Iveco has completed the local development of the Acco dual control, designed to replace the long serving Acco which dominated the waste sector for so long. This is expected, by Iveco, to be an important part of its product range, moving forward.
“We’re going to be looking into opportunities for us as a region to lean into new methods of propulsion, validation and potentially autonomous testing and validation,” says Michael. “So, these are where we want to lean forward, linking to the universities continuing to grow, and grow that part of our business.”
The Truck of the Year Australasia 2023 award will be presented at the Brisbane Truck Show on May 18.
