DAF

2018 International Truck of the Year Announcement

In Europe, the 2018 International Truck of the Year Announcement has been made today. DAF’s new XF/CF truck range has been elected International Truck of the Year for 2018 by a jury of 23 commercial vehicle editors and senior journalists, representing 23 major trucking magazines from throughout Europe. The prestigious award was handed over to Preston Feight, President of DAF Trucks, during the press day of the Solutrans Commercial Vehicle Show in Lyon, France.
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DAF Looks Good on Saving Fuel

Following the latest release in Europe, Diesel News’ Europe Correspondent, Brian Weatherley, reckons DAFs look good on saving fuel. He has seen them, and driven them. DAF says its latest CF and XF represent ‘pure excellence’.  According to Ron Borsboom, DAF’s chief engineer, director of product development and board member: “One of the things where we feel we do a pretty good job is we are close to our customers, and we understand what the requirements and needs of our customers are.”
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New Scania, Trucking Optimism, a Major Fine and Electric Axles

The news from Diesel this week shows evidence of a new Scania, trucking optimism, a major fine and electric axles, with stories from around the world. Images of the next generation Scania driving on Australian roads have started to appear on social media, as the Swedish truck maker run the new models in a, far from secret, evaluation program.  Read More

Nothing Too Flashy

The DAF CF85 is one of those trucks that just works – nothing too flashy, but it gets the job done without fuss. This is why we see it in fleets around the country handling the day-to-day tasks. There is no hint of glamour, just a can-do attitude. Anyone who has done a day’s work in one will have found it a truck which functions, as it should, in an uncomplicated way. By adding in an extra slice of power and taking the rating up to 510hp, DAF has simply made it able to handle heavier tasks in the same way. There has been an ongoing tendency for trucks to get more power year on year – there is now a 4×2 rigid available on the Australian market with 350hp under the shed. The decision to add 510hp to the CF85 seems small beer by comparison.
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A Thirst For Power

The trucking industry has a thirst for power in our trucks. DAF has heard our pleas and upped the power available in its CF85 prime mover. Quite often the art of designing a new truck is not designing and building something from the ground up, but instead mixing and matching the components available in a different way to solve a particular application issue. There are plenty of other examples of these evolutionary developed models running on our roads, now there’s another, the DAF CF85 with a 510hp Paccar MX engine.
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The Streets of London

On the streets of London, the CLOCS (Construction Logistics and Community Safety) ticking for truck owners in the UK capital. There’s been a growing debate in the UK on how to avoid collisions between commercial vehicles and cyclists. Truck makers are showcasing the designs they have come up with to avoid cyclist fatalities. In 2011, an analysis of nine cycling fatalities involving trucks in London discovered that seven of them involved construction vehicles, triggering concerns that while the construction industry accounted for only a small-proportion of freight traffic running in and out of the nation’s capital, their trucks were ‘over represented’ in cyclist fatalities.
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DAF Trucks Going Very Quiet

New regulations in Europe may see DAF trucks going very quiet, according to Diesel’s correspondent there, Brian Weatherley. A silent truck recently unveiled by DAF was part of a number of product improvements, for the European market right across its truck range. The DAF 7.5 tonne LF ‘Silent’ chassis joins equivalent low-noise MX 11 powered CF and XF models.
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Collusion Fines for Truck Makers

Massive collusion fines for truck makers have been handed down by the European Union. According to the EU the group of manufacturers were found to be acting as a cartel to fix prices of trucks and time the introduction of technologies to comply with emissions rules. The fines amount to 3 billion euros ($4.4 billion) and are said to be the highest ever levied by the European authorities. All of the major suppliers to the European market were included in the decision. Those fined in the case so far include MAN, Mercedes Benz, DAF, Iveco and Volvo/Renault and it was asserted they had been colluding for 14 years, from 1997 to 2011. Scania is still under investigation.
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Building for the Future

This is how you build a truck dealership. The video shows the construction of a new facility on a green field site in Queensland by Kenworth and DAF dealers, Brown and Hurley. Often in business, there are two possible ways of looking at the future. You can either take a short term gain approach, or take a long term view on where you are going, and build for the future. Unsurprisingly, those enterprises which take on the more considered long term philosophy also tend to hang around for a long time. Read More

Save fuel and increase safety

New technology to get even more out of the current truck designs is being experimented with around the world, by simply enabling trucks to run closer to the truck in front, without compromising safety. Here is a simple-to-understand video giving us the basics of just how platooning works in trucks. This shows us the EcoTwin project from DAF with two trucks, wirelessly linked via WiFi, driving at a close distance with the driver in the second truck not needing to accelerate, brake or steer.
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