Is this what you'll see in your mirror trundling as you past it on the M25 in 2020? Well who knows...but thanks to Commercial Motor editor Andy Salter (who also just so happens to be the current chairman of the International Truck of the Year Jury) Biglorryblog can offer you a quick glimpse of the future...or not. Back in 2006 the organisers of the bi-annual IAA Truck Show in Hanover challenged young European automotive designers to come up with designs for the truck of the year 2020. And here are some of the leading contenders from the competition. Above you can see the 'Rolling Home' roadtrain by Viktor Malakuczi from Hungary. The truck features a vast amount of living space plus fuel cell driveline technology.
Next we have the appropriately-named 'Chameleon' with a high-level cab which allows for front-loading of the cargo, while the body is made up of several components allowing different-sized loads to be easily accommodated. It's from Hai Shan Deng based in Austria.
For more weird and wacky future truck designs click through here now!
The 'Spidertrainer', by Ying Tao, also based in Austria at the Industrial Design Education centre in Linz, won first prize in the compeition with this terrific beast that can pick its own load up by the hydraulically-operated spider legs, while the driver sits in the cab of the tractor up front.
BLB can't tell you too much about this one except to say it's called the VW Ullisses and appears to be a container carrier. I presume it does bend somewhere, if only to go around corners.
The 'Two in One' from Karsten Willman of Germany features a driver 'pod' at the front and a separate Container Automated Guide Carrier or CAGV at the rear. The allocated of the load to the pod is automated once the pod has the load they go off together happy ever after.
The extendible 'Plicar' from Tobias Wohlfahrt of Germany has a 'stretchy' chassis frame that allows the normally short wheelbase urban delivery vehicle to accommodate larger volume loads. It's got hybrid technology and easy access side curtains.
And are there what you'll see in the truck park of the future too?
Some of them look quite believable as a long-distance haulers of the future, although I'd like to see their coupling devices closer up!
Most notably this one. But I guess at one time operators looked at the Renault Virages concept truck and said: 'Well that will never take off!' And then the Magnum arrived.....
Keep working with those crystal balls guys.
Via gerald an tnn.co,uk I've had this comment posted from Chris Christianson former truck marketing guru at Ivecoin the Uk and Turin. Chris writes: "Brian, I saw your 'blog' on trucks of the future and, naturally, these will all fall by the wayside as usual.
I do wish that the transport industry would wake up! It really is about time that manufacturers, operators and transport journalists stopped monkeying around with infeasible articulated vehicle concepts and addressed the problem of vehicles for multi-drop urban distribution. With a little bit of thought and some innovative engineering, both vans and medium weight trucks could be significantly improved for multi-drop work. Improvement means better trucks. better trucks mean higher productivity. Higher productivity means fewer trucks. Fewer trucks means reduced costs and reduced tailpipe emissions.
Kind regards
Chris."