The complete renewal of the Hino truck range reaches its conclusion with the introduction of the new 700 Series models and sees a genuine heavy duty challenger from Hino coming on to the Australian truck market.
Over the last few years, Hino has completely upgraded all of the trucks it offers to the Australian truck market. It started with the new 500 Series, was then followed by the new 300 Series, and now we see the arrival of the new 700 Series heavy duty truck range from the Japanese manufacturer.
This renewal across the brand has seen the introduction of state-of-the-art safety systems and modern electronics throughout the range. The Hino brand has been uncompromising in its mission to bring the latest technology into the Japanese segment of the truck market.
In the past, Japanese truck manufacturers have always been a couple of steps behind competitors from Europe, in terms of technological sophistication, but this series of truck releases has seen the Hino brand closely match Europeans in terms of technology toe-to-toe.
Ostensibly, this release is to introduce the latest low exhaust emissions engines onto the market. However, it does not stop at Euro 6, there is also a suite of electronic safety features which brings the complete offering from Hino bang up to date.
Each time PowerTorque reports on the latest release from Hino, it inevitably leads to a long list of three- and four-letter abbreviations for all of the systems which are now included. Overall, the package is called Hino SmartSafe and now includes Driver Monitor (DM), the Pre-Collision System (PCS), Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB), Pedestrian Detection (PD), Lane Departure Warning system (LDWS), Vehicle Stability Control (VSC), Reverse Camera, plus more features which do not have simple abbreviations.
The Pre-Collision system uses a radar and video feed which constantly monitors the road in front of the truck. The combination of the two systems will work out what any object in front of the truck is and how fast, and in what direction, it is travelling.
Based on this information, it will react if it calculates there is danger of a collision. Depending on the urgency of the situation it can slow the truck, it can introduce some braking or, in the most dangerous circumstances, apply 100 per cent braking immediately and bring the vehicle to a halt before any collision.
As a a genuine heavy duty challenger from Hinohis new model sees the introduction of a new driver monitoring system, a first for Hino in Australia. The Driver Monitor system has a camera monitoring driver behaviour and distraction fitted to the A pillar. This will set off an alarm if serious fatigue or inattention is detected. The camera is monitoring the drivers posture, where they are looking and eyelid movement, it then interprets this data to decide whether it needs to alert the driver. There is a small infrared camera which is embedded in the A-pillar. The SmartSafe system is available in most models as the new 700 Series rolls out, with the twin steer 8×4 models joining the SmartSafe party in 2022.
