Hino Truck’s Australian sales and marketing boss, Richard Emery, says that the company’s order bank has never been bigger and believes that the strong sales growth in the truck market is going to continue for some time to come, despite fears in the media of a recession and the spectre of rising interest rates.
Emery was speaking with the Truck trade press at a drive event in Far North Queensland, where he revealed that the company’s order intake continues to outstrip supply which has been choked by the delays and production restrictions imposed by hold ups with components, shipping and the various flood and pandemic issues that have affected Australia in the past two years.
“We have never really been able to catch up since the 2020 Brisbane floods, once we claw back ground from one delay something else holds things up and its really affecting the entire industry,” Emery said.
“The semi conductor delays held things up, but that seems to have evened out a bit lately, however there might be components for fridge bodies that are delayed, backlogs with truck body builders , or other things, there is no single thing that has caused the delays and backlogs, there are a number of issues,” he said.
Emery told the media that despite the delays Hino is still registering strong sales numbers, scoring the company’s best ever monthly sales volume result in June, capping off a record first half result for the company in Australia.
“We envisage continued growth for some time to come, because if you look at the forecasts they tell us that the freight task in Australia will grow around 40 per cent in the next decade and that economic growth will be strong through to at least 2030,” said Emery.
He believes. that Hino’s hybrid trucks will also present the Toyota aligned brand. with a massive opportunity in the next few years as a viable and practical low emission alternative to full battery electric trucks.
“The order rate for our 300 Series Hybrids has doubled in the past six months and given full electric trucks present a number of challenges such as charging capacity and a higher initial purchase price, this means hybrid technology could be the perfect bridge to full electric trucks delivering low fuel consumption and emissions and better green credentials,” Emery said.
“Hybrids offer up to 22 per cent reduction in fuel use and C02 emissions. compared with similar sized full diesel trucks and a 50 percent reduction in idling time,” he said.
Along with rises in hybrid uptake Hino cited significant increases in sales of its 300 series light duty trucks, which are up 20 per cent this year, while the 4×4 version of the 300 is up 33 per cent to the end of June.
“Its not just the 300 Series, we are seeing strong growth in 500 Series, particularly the Wide Cab models, while our heavy duty 700 Series models are up 20 per cent with more opportunity for that sector, we believe,” he added.
The company is about to embark on a major National Roadshow that will roll out across the country across the rest of this year and into early 2023.
“The Roadshow is our biggest ever joint venture with our dealer network and will see us directly engaged with more than 1700 customers offering both static and drive opportunities and it will coincide with a number of Supercar events,” said Emery
