From delivering washing machines and construction materials to transporting gas and collecting waste, the trucks you see rolling along the highways and in your neighborhoods contribute to society in ways many people rarely stop to consider. The backbone of North America’s road freight transport industry, class 8 trucks transport essential materials and goods to every corner of the country—including the gas to fill up your tank, food and the refrigerators to keep it fresh, and the steel, concrete and stone used to build the bridges you drive across.
And while traveling alongside these trucks on the highway could be unnerving due to their sheer size, the industry has made significant strides to ensure class 8 trucks are safer for both people and the environment than those of years past. In fact, these trucks offer the most technological advancements in the North American classes 4–8 commercial vehicle (CV) industry.
In this miniblog series, we’ll explore the trends, technologies and key manufacturing aspects related to this important market. In part 1, we’ll focus on class 8 production trends, as well as operation, safety and the shift to zero-emission tractors. In part 2, we’ll delve into class 8 straight trucks and provide key takeaways to keep you one step ahead of the competition.
Class 8 trucks represent the upper echelon of the commercial vehicle industry, as well as the largest subsegment in the North American medium- and heavy-duty CV market (classes 4–8).
These vehicles are divided into two types—tractors and straight trucks—each serving different customer applications. According to Escalent’s Commercial Vehicle Competitive Landscape Q3 2024 Build Plan, 70% of class 8 commercial vehicles produced in North America are tractors.
Class 8 tractors, also called semitrucks, don’t have an inherent cargo body attached to the truck. Instead, they use trailers such as containers, flat beds, aggregate haulers, tankers and other heavy haul loads.
This configuration provides the following advantages:
Tractors perform best when running at cruising speeds on long stretches of road in long-haul or regional-haul applications that optimize fuel consumption and vehicle longevity. According to industry estimates, long-haul tractors cover 2,000 miles per week on average, adding up to annual mileage of around 100,000 miles.
Most major fleets buy new commercial vehicles with varying replacement cycles of three to eight years that accumulate mileage up to about 700,000 miles. Most tractors will then have a second or third life, often with owner operators or smaller fleets.
Long-haul trips, and those that cover multiple regions, may require drivers to sleep overnight or take mandatory rests from driving. According to our CV Competitive Landscape Q3 2024 Build Plan, 70% of class 8 tractors are equipped with a sleeper cab that provides a bed plus comfort features, including a TV, microwave, refrigerator, storage and workstation. Sleeper cabs come in various roof heights and lengths depending on fleets’ preferences, with the largest cabs offering two-person sleeping capability.
Regular, or day, cabs are used in 30% of class 8 tractors for shorter-distance hauling. They’re used for local delivery of food and beverages and heavy-hauling jobs that require maximum cargo capacity, such as construction materials (stone, gravel and sand), fuel and other liquids, mining materials and logs.
Class 8 tractors are designed to pull heavy loads, which means they need engines with high torque at low speeds. Almost 96% of these tractors use diesel engines, most of which have a displacement of over 10L. However, this is expected to change as the trucking industry moves to zero-emission powertrain technologies, such as battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).
According to our CV Competitive Landscape Q3 2024 Build Plan, almost 14% of class 8 tractors produced in 2030 will be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) compared with 0.7% in 2024. However, it’s not smooth sailing for ZEVs as adoption is running below expectations. Major concerns remain around zero-emission vehicle costs, vehicle range, payload loss, charging infrastructure for BEVs, and hydrogen fuel cost and availability for FCEVs.
Class 8 tractors travel up to 600 miles in a day and even more with a two-person team. Reaching long distances like these is difficult with a BEV. Tesla’s SEMI has reached up to 500 miles on a single charge, although real-world range will vary based on driving style, loads and road conditions. Large batteries are heavy, resulting in a trade-off between batteries and payload. While battery technology is progressing and energy density is improving, more work must be done to bring battery ranges in-line with class 8 requirements.
The price of ZEVs is a major issue. BEV tractors are two to three times the price of a comparable ICE tractor, while FCEV tractors are even more expensive. This price differential can be partially offset by government subsidies and grants to help stimulate ZEV adoption, but longer-term pricing will need to be closer to ICE-powered vehicles to be sustainable.
Charging infrastructure continues to be a major challenge. The larger batteries used in BEV tractors require high-voltage DC charging, and installing charging equipment at a company’s facility is costly and time-consuming. In addition, high-voltage DC and megawatt charging networks along major freight routes have not yet been developed.
In addition to new ICE and ZEV developments, technologies such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomy will play a crucial role in the coming decade. ADAS technologies such as automatic emergency braking (AEB), blind spot monitoring (BSM), lane-keep assist (LKA) and active cruise control (ACC) are already standard features on most class 8 tractors, ensuring the safety of both truck drivers and drivers around them.
ADAS technologies provide the basis for autonomous technology. Volvo and Freightliner unveiled working prototypes of autonomous class 8 tractors at last year’s ACT Expo and announced that both commercial vehicles are currently undergoing real-world testing. PACCAR and TRATON’s International trucks are also involved in trial programs.
Four manufacturers lead the class 8 market: Daimler (Freightliner and Western Star), PACCAR (Kenworth and Peterbilt), Volvo (Volvo Trucks and Mack) and TRATON (International). We estimate their combined share will decrease to about 96% as new ZEV tractors enter the segment.
While tractors represent a significant portion of the segment, they aren’t the only type of class 8 commercial vehicle. Be sure to read part 2 of this miniblog series to learn more about:
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