Volvo to unveil new FH model in Brisbane

Swedish truck make Volvo will unveil the new Volvo FH in Brisbane's Queen Street Mall next Wednesday morning prior to the Brisbane Truck Show. More than 500  local Volvo employees will be present when Graham Quirk, Lord Mayor of Brisbane, will unveil the new model. 

Volvo Trucks Australia Vice President, Gary Bone, said the new truck has been built in Brisbane at Volvo's Wacol factory by local engineering and design teams and would feature “several world-first innovations, especially in the area of safety.

“In preparation for this launch we’ve crash tested over 25 trucks and have run over 1000 simulations,” he said. For instance, the FH features Volvo’s innovative I-See system, the technology that allows the truck to remember hills to in order to reduce fuel consumption.

“It has a built-in memory, which can store up to 4000 hills and acts like an autopilot that handles gear-changes and maintains truck momentum,” Mr Bone said. “The I-See technology not only helps our customers by reducing their fuel costs, it also reduces our impact on the environment.”

Mr Bone said Volvo’s Brisbane factory had to undergo a major facelift to accommodate the production of the new truck. “We had to raise the roof of the Wacol factory because the vehicle is a lot taller than previous models,” he said. “With over 500 employees, Brisbane really is the home of Volvo Trucks in Australia, and last year we invested $9 million to prepare the production plant for this new model.”

Customer field testing was also a key part of the development of the new model. “We’ve field tested more than 60 of these new trucks around the world, but due to the harsh climate and long distances that drivers contend with in Australia, we’ve conducted more test kilometres here than in any other country.”