S-Way ushers in new era for IVECO

The release of the new IVECO S-Way marks the start of a new period for the brand here in Australia, as the company’s history of local truck manufacturing fades in the mirrors and a new age begins as a full importer and distributor.

IVECO Australia announced in late 2021 that it would cease local manufacturing from mid-2022, instead focusing its efforts on meeting local customers’ needs with a fully imported range.

“About 12 or 18 months ago we were speaking about the change for IVECO in this region,” said IVECO Australia and New Zealand’s CEO, Michael May, at a recent media and dealer drive event in Victoria for the new S-Way.

“We had to make some decisions about what we were doing in regards to our local manufacturing and we went through that process quite seriously – together with International and ourselves, we’ve been producing trucks [here in Australia] for many years.

“We were looking quite seriously at that time as to how we could quickly get ourselves up to speed with the latest technology in Europe, and the company made the decision collectively that the best way to do that, the way that we could invest collectively, was to bring the product that we build for the whole world – for South America, Europe, and our Asia Pacific region – from the Madrid [Spain] plant.

“It was a challenging time for us but we did a really good job, I think, sundowning the factory [in Dandenong, Vic] the right way. And it’s given us an exciting opportunity to align.”

The new IVECO S-Way range was designed in Germany and Italy with input from Australia and New Zealand, while it is manufactured in Spain, with its Cursor engines built in France. IVECO Australia says the S-Way features numerous revisions to suit the Australian market, with the largest Active Space S-Way prime mover for B-Double work featuring revised positioning of it battery box and air tank, the addition of a heavy-duty crossmember for extra chassis rigidity, and an additional fuel tank.

A load-sharing front suspension set-up is available on 8x4 models to reap the benefits of extra steer-axle capacity, while some models have revised air cleaners and all models benefit from enhanced cooling systems honed to handle our hot Aussie summers.

Mr May said the new IVECO S-Way, and the process IVECO Australia followed in bringing the new product to our shores, shone a light on the company’s new direction.

“So now we’re aligned with the latest product that’s coming from Europe,” he said. “However, we haven’t lost a lot of our investment, particularly in 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 new customer and innovation centre that we’re moving into in Keysborough [in Melbourne], and when we talk about the S-Way, we’ve just completed the local development of the ACCO dual-control, so that product is running around in Melbourne and getting high kilometres and will continue to be an important part of our product [range].

“When you get to experience [the S-Way], you can do so with the knowledge that we’ve done thousands of hours, and now millions of kilometres, of local validation and testing for this product to make sure it’s right for our customers for over here,” he said.

IVECO Australia says the local testing programme saw three S-Way units in a variety of specifications amass thousands of kilometres while travelling between Melbourne and Brisbane at full operating loads. Testing was also conducted in outback NSW, while four X-Way trucks were used for further testing of the driveline (which is shared across the out-going and incoming platforms).

While deliveries of the new IVECO S-Way to customers have already commenced, the official public debut of the new S-Way range will take place at the upcoming Brisbane Truck Show, to be held at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre over May 18 to 21.