The Mack Trucks Anthem over-the-road Class 8 model arrived in 2017, just as the recent spike in new truck sales began. Now that orders of over-the-road models are cooling, Mack is refocusing on its expertise in refuse, construction and “other dirty trucks.”
“Nothing beats luck in this business and the timing of the Mack Anthem was very lucky,” Jonathan Randall, Mack vice president of North American Sales and Marketing, told FreightWaves at the American Trucking Associations’ Management Conference & Exhibition in San Diego on October 7.
“It allowed us to meet the demand for more trucks. In the process, we got some customers we might not have otherwise,” Randall said.
The Anthem is earning repeat business as Mack makes inroads in the segment dominated by Freightliner and its sibling Volvo Trucks North America. Mack and Volvo are part of the Volvo Group.
“Fleets that ordered 10 trucks love them and are ordering 40 or 50 more,” Randall said.
The overall decline in Class 8 truck orders – down year over year for 11 consecutive months – will impact Mack along with its bigger competitors. But the brand could gain market share as overall sales shrink, Randall said. Mack, which sells only Class 8 models, has a 7.2% share of the market, down two-tenths of a point from a year ago, Randall said.
Dirty Trucks
Where Randall expects Mack to succeed in 2020 is with refuse, construction and “other dirty trucks.”
“There will be a rebalancing of segments,” he said.
That is good for Mack because of its decades of off-road expertise. Housing starts and highway construction pump up demand for off-road trucks. Cities of all sizes always need garbage trucks.
“We are returning to a more normal market, and normal is not bad,” Randall said. Industry consensus calls for 325,000 retail sales of Class 8 trucks this year. That could fall to the mid-200,000s in 2020, though Randall said Mack’s estimate would be shared later.
Product enhancements
Mack is focusing on keeping the trucks it sells in service and offering better fuel efficiency, said Roy Horton, Mack director of product strategy. Both are keys of the total cost of ownership which fleets place high in purchase consideration.
More than 100,000 Mack Trucks on the road are equipped with the Guard Dog Connect telematics system. The company’s 148 Certified Uptime Dealers have:
- Increased shop efficiency by 24%
- Reduced diagnostic times by 70%
- Reduced repair times by 21%
- Reduced ‘check-in’ time by 40 minutes
The number of over-the-air updates os growing as customers order discounted packages of 50 remote updates in addition to two parameter settings allowed every 12 months a truck is under warranty.
Since October 2017, Mack has performed more than 3,000 updates for nearly 800 customers, saving 4,000 days of downtime, Horton said. The average time for a remote update is 20 minutes. The updates include road speed limits, idle time and engine modes.
Mack claims up to 9.5% improvement in fuel efficiency with its MP8HE engine that captures waste energy to boost efficiency.
An additional 0.5% gain in fuel efficiency is possible with extended chassis fairings available for Mack Anthem models. The fairings, which have integrated steps to make it easier for a driver to access the back-of-cab area, direct air more smoothly around the rear axles.