'Benz reveals next-gen timeline

The atmosphere at Mercedes-Benz Truck & Bus headquarters in Mulgrave, Melbourne, hangs heavy these days – heavy with change, with intense activity, and – above all else – with opportunity.

Like the other brands under the Daimler Trucks umbrella, Mercedes-Benz underwent a major shakeup last year in line with its parent's new corporate philosophy of 'Customer Dedication' – a restructure that placed the group's emphasis firmly back on those on which it relies most: the end-users.

Under the guidance of Daimler Managing Director, Daniel Whitehead, and Mercedes-Benz Truck & Bus General Manager, Justin Whitford – both appointed in early 2014 – 'Benz now has more troops on the ground than ever before, and for good reason.

"For us this is a once in a 15- or 20-year opportunity to fully introduce a product that is new from the ground up," he says.

"We have doubled the size of both our sales and our technical teams and we're planning everything now for the introduction of this new product, with the investment, dedication and support to make that happen."

To be fair, change was necessary. Mercedes-Benz Trucks has lagged in terms of market share in Australia (it garnered just a 3.6 per cent slice of the heavy-duty segment in 2014, well behind Volvo's 13.5 per cent), and its presence here pales in comparison to that enjoyed by the three-pointed star in many European markets.

Now, with renewed purpose and motivation, Mercedes-Benz is focussing its efforts on smoothing the transition to the new platform – and learning from past mistakes.

"If we've learnt nothing else through our time with our [current] vehicles in the market, it's that being prepared and making them right for the market in advance is very, very important," says Assimo.

"Our current range is certainly at that level now but it took a while for us to get there, and we don't want to have that lag [with this next generation] – we want to hit the ground running."

EVALUATION PROGRAM
To that end, Mercedes-Benz has embarked upon an extensive evaluation program, with a test fleet of next-generation trucks arriving from the start of this year. After being the subject of extensive in-house technical and sales training, those vehicles are now poised to be embedded in customer fleets, following the public debut of a new Actros prime mover at the 2015 Brisbane Truck Show on May 14.

Along with Germany, Australia is the only world market to undertake a pre-release program of this nature, says Assimo, with the scheme to encompass New Zealand too.

As such, Australian testing will form a 'feedback loop' with Germany, allowing the trucks to be truly 'fit for purpose' by the time they're officially ready for sale.

While the new trucks have already taken a number of years to reach Australia – the new platform was rolled out in a staged released in Europe from 2011 to 2013 – Assimo says Mercedes-Benz isn't about to rush the process.

"We're expecting [the introduction] to be some time towards the end of 2016; we don't have a set timeframe and it's heavily dependent on the back of the evaluation program," he says.

The evaluation program will see the new trucks trialled by over 25 customers across Australia, with each trial focussing on key market segments and lasting between two to three months.

Assimo stresses that at this early stage each model is very 'raw' in terms of market optimisation.

"Everything we're testing now we expect to be a worst case scenario from a fuel efficiency perspective, so we can benchmark ourselves from the bottom," he says.

FIT FOR PURPOSE
While changes are currently focused around packaging – increasing fuel and AdBlue tank capacities, for example – as the trucks move through the evaluation process further tweaks and fine-tuning will be incorporated to specifically address local requirements.

Currently the largest fuel capacity available is around 900 litres, but Assimo says Mercedes-Benz hopes to eventually squeeze somewhere between 1200 and 1300 litres into the local product, with a corresponding jump in AdBlue capacity.

Evaluation fleet vehicles won't bear any model names, either, allowing Mercedes-Benz to gain customer feedback untainted by assumptions of how a certain engine size and rating should perform for any given task.

White supermarket distribution examples aside, the remainder of the evaluation fleet will feature a black vinyl wrap – which if anything draws even more attention to the trucks, given their rather sinister look.

Each customer trial will be followed by an extensive de-brief, interview and survey, while the truck's progress will be monitored around the clock by Mercedes-Benz's in-house 'FleetBoard' telematics service.

GENERATION NEXT
So, what's coming our way? In the line-haul range, the new Actros will eventually replace the old Actros and Axor models, while the new Antos will handle the distribution market and the new Arocs is a flexible platform catering primarily to the construction sector. The existing Atego will remain as the brand's medium-duty offering for the time being, with the adoption of the new Atego range still some way off.

The Actros, Antos and Arocs are all-new developments, with new chassis, engines, drivelines, and cabs, yet they also share a modular design that essentially sees different 'skins', if you like, applied to the same basic structural platform.

The new engine range now encompasses four platforms: 7.7-litre (300/350hp), 10.6-litre (360/390/430hp), 12.8-litre (450/480/510hp) and 15.6-litre (520/580/625hp).

"That's far superior to what we have in our existing range, in terms of the numbers of categories of vehicles we can offer, and horsepower steps," says Assimo, although the final local line-up is yet to be determined.

The full range adopts a common-rail straight-six format with high-pressure 'X-Pulse' direct injection (the old V6 and V8 architecture now a thing of the past), while the existing PowerShift 2 automated manual transmission makes way for the more advanced PowerShift 3. The next generation of 'Benz AMT is available in 12-speed and 16-speed iterations, and is said to feature an even higher level of refinement and ability.

A total of 14 cabs are available in Europe and they offer new levels of comfort and utility; it remains to be seen how many will be offered here in Australia.

While the evaluation fleet will all have Euro 6 compliance, effectively cutting AdBlue consumption by half, Mercedes-Benz says the local introduction will see Euro 5 engines offered in parallel across all but a few niche applications. Emissions are handled by a mix of technologies: a diesel particulate filter with selective catalytic reduction and exhaust gas recirculation.

GAME CHANGER
Mercedes-Benz says the new generation will bring improvements on every level.

"We certainly expect fuel benefits – that's been proven in Europe but we still have to prove it here – along with total-cost-of-ownership improvements due to the increased longevity of all components," says Assimo.

"Apart from the ride, comfort and driveability, the driving dynamics of the vehicles are also significantly enhanced."

While those comments won't come as any surprise, the evaluation program will soon reveal all as the new trucks are exposed to local conditions and local operators.

At the time of writing the evaluation fleet comprised two B-double-rated Actros trucks, a distribution-focused Actros crossover, two Antos prime movers, an Antos rigid, a road-train-rated Arocs, and two 8x4 Arocs variants, with more vehicles in the pipeline.

trucksales.com.au recently gained an exclusive first taste of one of the new trucks with a 200 kilometre round trip from Mercedes-Benz HQ, our route taking in a mix of suburban arterials, freeways, and local roads. Our evaluation rig was the aforementioned 'crossover' model – an Actros 2651 angled at distribution and intrastate work, with a 13-litre engine in the highest output rating of 510hp. Click here to read our drive impression of that truck.

NEW ERA
It's an exciting time for both Mercedes-Benz Trucks and its customers. There's plenty of life left in the current line-up – there's a lot to be said for buying at the zenith of any product's development – but the next generation is looming large and here in Australia Mercedes-Benz is doing all it can to seize the opportunity with both hands.

"We're underrepresented in the market at the moment and we want to be a bigger player, there's no doubt about that, and we're setting up everything we do to be a bigger player," says Assimo.

"We've got the existing product to do it and in the future we think we've got an even better product to do it."