Swedish truck maker Scania is hoping to launch a sales assault on a range of new vocational applications on the back of its new 11 litre Super engine, with the aim of winning sales in a range of applications where it has rarely played successfully before.
During a media briefing in Melbourne last week where Scania gave journalists the chance to try the new truck in a range of configurations, the company ‘s national sales director, Ben Nye revealed that it would be chasing sales in applications such as concrete agitators, waste trucks, hook lifts and an ongoing drive with both curtain side rigid 8×2 and prime mover 6×2 configurations in distribution.
At the heart of the Super 11 is its new 11-litre engine.
Well 10.6 litre, if you would like to be technical. Its a double overhead cam 20 valve inline five cylinder, so it’s quite an unusual engine, but not unusual for Scania, because its predecessor, the 9.3 litre DOHC, was also a five cylinder.Scania’s modular philosophy means it shares many component with tis six and V8 engines.
So what is state of the art about this truck and in particular this engine? Well for a start, it’s the first heavy diesel engine for truck use, that has introduced variable valve timing.
That’s a technology that’s been in car engines and motorbikes for almost four decades, but now Scania has introduced it into a heavy diesel. Ben Nye explains that this technology also acts strongly for the engine brake as well.
“So by using the cam phases we can retard timing and braking to help with slowing the truck down,” Nye explained
“It also introduces another new first, which is what they call turbo dosing, which is where we actually dose AdBlue into the turbo charger itself, so we’re atomising the AdBlue in a more efficient way for emissions for us to pass Euro six and beyond,” he said.
The Scania sales boss also explained that this engine, like its brother, the Super 13 has been developed to go beyond Euro 6.
“This is a platform that can take us to Euro 7 and beyond, and it is a continuation of the Super 13 concept,” he noted.
Scania launched the Super 13 in Australia in 2022 and Nye reckons that ever since then it has been giving the competition many sleepless nights.
“That’s because not only is it better on fuel, we’ve heard reports of up to 30 per cent better than competitors, but it also performs, and that is one thing that a Scania always does, and that is it will do what it says on the badge, plus a little bit more,” Nye explained with a smile
He explained that Scania is still on the electrification journey, and that is something that the company has committed to, so that it is continuing to develop that power option for the Australian market as well.
“Look we’ve got some exciting products coming, but as we all know, electrification is not viable for every application, so in true Scania fashion, we have continued to develop internal combustion, because that is what’s going to get us through,” he said.
Scania has developed this new 11-litre engine to not only run on diesel, but also on HVO (hydtro-treated vegetable oils) and biodiesel.
“So, HVO, can be run in every single engine in the horsepower range including the 350hp, the 390hp and the 430hp engines,” Nye told us.
“However biodiesel, so B100, can also be run in both the 390 and 430, so having this new range of engines as versatile and flexible as possible in this interesting fuel market is a big advantage.”
The new Scania 11 litre range starts with that 350hop unit which delivers 1800Nm of torque, moves up to the 390 which boasts 2000Nm and tops out with the 430 and its 2200Nm output.
Scania says that all of the engines develop maximum torque at 950 rpm, which is a pretty impressive feat for what is a fairly small engine.
Nye reckons that this point is what is allowing Scania to evolve into other applications and vocational tasks.
As the Scania sales supremo admitted this ‘other Swedish brand’ has always been known as the ‘long haul, widget, highway line haul truck’, and also as a strong supplier of fire trucks, but Nye added that the brand needs to survive and as a result it needs to evolve.
“For us to evolve, we need to go into uncharted territory, and uncharted territory means new applications,” he said.
The next day after this briefing, we got a chance to drive many of the new Scanias in a lot of different configurations and applications, including a 6×4 350hp hook lift with a loaded bin on the back, a rigid 8×2 curtain-sider, which Nye proudly boasts Scania pioneered as a setup, and reckons he is determined not to let it go off the product line-up.
There was also a fully built up 350hp concrete agitator, which was a bit of a first for Scania and makes sense given Nye’s rationale, which we will explain shortly.
With the Hook Lift configured truck Nye explained that the reason Scania was going into this area, which is not really a new one for the brand, was because he says of any brand, it already probably has one of the highest market shares in waste, but he is determined to increase that share.
“We’ve actually knocked off a few of our competitors in this industry, but to be successful in waste, it’s about safety, it’s about easy entry and egress, it’s about tare weight, it’s about forward vision, and it’s about fuel consumption,” he said
“They are the main drivers for any waste company right now and we reckon we have the mix right with all those factors,” he said.
Scania also had a front lift on display, but because of the difficulty in getting a load into a brand new waste truck, it remained on the pad for viewing, but not for driving.
“We couldn’t have that loaded because it’s actually quite hard to find rubbish to load when you’re not really a rubbish company.”
Nye went on to explain the rationale behind the 8×2 rigid curtainsider, revealing that he believes it fixes so many problems in distribution.
“Traditional 6×4 rigid distribution trucks often have a problem for the drivers because you have to be careful how you unload at various points 
around the delivery route. to maintain load stability
“For the 8×2 diminishing loads aren’t a problem, because it’s got two axles at the front and two axles at the back, and the difference with ours is that with the two axles at the back, only one is being driven, which results in massive fuel savings,” Nye said.
“Again, safety is paramount, so with lane assist, AEB with pedestrian warning and industry standard leading rollover curtain-side airbags, we have a great package,” he said.
“No other manufacturer offers curtain side airbags in a truck cab, and at time we are in disbelief, because we have had this full package of airbags, with the roll over curtain airbag since 2018,” he emphasised.
The concrete agitator market is one that Nye believes is ripe for the picking, particularly with the ongoing infrastructure and building surge around the country.
“This next one is a really interesting application for us, because it’s something that we’ve never really done since I started with Scania in 2010, and I felt through that time, that we would never say that we’ve released an agitator,” said Nye.
“But the market is demanding another option, particularly with American trucks not evolving as quickly as they need to, and the Europeans seeming to be completely out of this market,” he added.
“We decided we wanted to take that spot, so we’ve developed a package that is as light as possible, in an 8×4 format, with 350 hp, which solves many of the problems out there at the moment within the agitator application,” he said.
“The main challenge for the concrete industry is stability, because when you actually start to look into the data, 39 per cent of injuries within the concrete agitator application comes down to rollover, as well as with entry and egress.
“Noise and vibration is a also a problem and our truck solves all these challenges,” he said
“Our truck is solving the rollover issue, because we have the highest roll stiffness in the chase of any manufacturer in this application at the moment. We’ve got over 830 kiloNewtons of roll stiffness at the front suspension, and we also have the rollover airbags, so if one does arrive at a corner a little too briskly, and if the worst case scenario happens, we are still the only ones with curtain airbags in a concrete agitator,” he said.
“But again, with AEB including pedestrian warning, lane departure warning, adaptive cruise control. we have a safety package that’s second to none, and one thing which concrete operators are now starting to look at is efficiency, which with the price of fuel right now has again been further amplified,” Nye said.
“We have made sure that this is the safest concrete truck on the market, and that it’s also the quietest concrete truck on the market, as well as being the smoothest one on the market, and it performs,” Nye claimed.
“It was quite interesting, even when talking to customers who run waste, which up until recent times they’ve never looked at fuel consumption, but now it is front of mind,” he said
The final truck in the drive line up was the P430 6×2 prime mover, which is kind of an unusual configuration, but again Nye has a good degree of logic in specifying this for the demands of city and regional deliveries, particularly for the likes of Coles-Worth and other supermarket, supply and logistics fleets, including Aldi (which runs quite a large fleet of Scanias).
Scania has worked closely with the supermarket chains on the 6×2 prime mover set up in recent 
years Nye told us. It has developed a design using a load transfer system, which always keeps 60 per cent on the drive to minimise or eliminate wheel spin.
“There’s also a button that you can press that, if you were in a situation such as on a large spoon drain or a steep driveway, that you can remove the air from the tag and push it into the drive to push it down,” said Nye.
“That’s for those rare and unusual situations in day to day operation, but the biggest change is fuel, that is the biggest difference,” he added.
“Why do you need a 6×4 for doing distribution and supermarket drop off on the average run up the freeway, why do you need two axles driven?”
“We are not doing the Oodnadatta Track to go to Coles, so here in Australia we worked closely and developed our 6×2 system, which has a load transfer, doesn’t run a power divider and doesn’t run a second diff, it makes so much sense,” he explained
“Europe does it, we just don’t, and I’m determined to make this work,” he said.
ON THE ROAD
So what were they like on the road in a busy traffic environment around Melbourne’s burgeoning Northern Suburbs, around Scania’s Aussie HQ at Campbellfield.?
Impressive, is one word we would use. It is always difficult to get a snap shot of how a truck really suits an operation and environment on a short 30 minute or 40 minute drive, but it does give you a reasonable idea of performance, comfort, noise, handling, ergonomics and overall suitability.
Our first steer was at the wheel of the 6×2 Curtainsider , tackling a circuitous route through the labyrinth of small industrial units in the back blocks of Campbellfield, negotiating an obscene number of roundabouts, stop signs, traffic lights and of course consistently busy road conditions with a lot of car drivers trying their hardest to cause a bingle.
The quietness of the cab and the low down torquey grunt of that five cylinder twin cam diesel, was apparent from the outset with strong acceleration and a low, purposeful growl from the exhaust, making the driver realise that this engine can do the job, particularly mated to Scania’s excellent 12 speed AMT.
The five cylinder exhaust note is distinctive and impressive and like Scania’s alluring road that it manages from its larger V8 diesels it almost becomes a trademark for the brand. For old rally car enthusiasts like us it reminds us of the growl of that famous Audi Quattro five cylinder roar from the 1980s, just a lot torquier and purposeful.
With so much building going on around Melbourne’s North, hook lift trucks are a familiar sight, shifting skip bins around many times a day doing battle with all the similar hazards from this almost suicidal car drivers to pedestrians and of course battling site access.
This 350hp 6×4 Hook Lift truck did the business and handles the tasks with ease and comfort. A driver could expect no better in this sector of the market . It is apparent to us that Scania is assembling an arsenal of really impressive and compelling weapons that we reckon the waste industry will take a much close look at in the future.
Our roads are increasingly crowded with the ubiquitous urban semi trailers operated by the likes of Linfox, Woolworths Connect, Aldi and a range of other operators, all battling to keep us every day consumers satisfied when we take a trip to the supermarket So the Scania 6×2 price mover with a hefty GVM of close on 32 tonnes, should be of enormous interest to those operators.
With the highest horsepower 430 11 litre under the cab this truck was a revelation as we pilot4ed it up the Hume as far as the locale of Beveridge, once a rural are with empty paddocks, and now the fastest growth area in the Greater Melbourne area.
Whether accelerating up to the ambient 100km/h speed of the freeway of tackling the often tight and challenging smaller roads surrounding it, this truck performed extremely well. Its performance belied the fact that it was just an 11 litre and was loaded to more than 30 tonnes. It also showed an admirable fuel consumption average of better than two kilometres per litre, which given the stop start nature of the test was very impressive.
It also delivered that trademark 5-cylinder growl as it dug deep in the torque well to pull that load around with efficiency and without fuss. Driver’s of this Scania could strut proudly around colleagues in higher horsepower and thirstier trucks, safe int he knowledge that their truck does the job, uses less fuel and is a very pleasant workspace.
With so many houses being built in the area, negotiating a route with included a chain of 13 roundabouts in a row was a good test for Scania’s ambitious ambit claim on the concrete agitator market.
The thing that really impressed from the start with this truck was the easy two step entry and exit from the driver’s seat. For concrete drivers having to constantly enter and exit the cab multiple times in a day’s work this has to be a bonus for our ageing driver population and for better OH&S compliance. The inclusion of a 360 degree camera view also makes dangerous manoeuvring on building sites and busy urban areas a lot easier to negotiate
Performance from the 350 horse 11 litre in the ‘agi’ was as we had discovered on the other trucks was very good. The engine was not mated to the usual concrete industry specification, the 6-speed Allison full auto. Instead it was fitted with an adapted and reprogrammed version of Scania’s 14 speed AMT. This offers really sharp and well managed shifts without hesitation or baulking. Our view is no one will miss the full auto, although Scania can offer it as an option for those it can’t convince to try the leap to a 12 speed AMT. We reckon those that try it will like it and make that move without fear or favour.
The key to the low tare on the Scania is the lightweight 11 litre coupled with the also light AMT. It also features lightweight hub reduction units on the drive axles which while helping to reduce weight also promises long-term robustness.
All that an in particular the efficient 11 litre promises better fuel consumption, which Scania claims is seven per cent better with the 11 litre compared with its old 9-litre
Scania does point to what it believes is a significant tare weight advantage with its agitator spec, something that has been a major reason why Iveco’s European sourced- Acco badged truck has lost a huge number of sales in an application where it once dominated. Weight is really significant for any truck operator but is particularly vital in the agi market.
CONCLUSION
Can Scania make some dents in the market share of opponents in these applications? Certainly it can in our view, and given the brand’s unerring belief in the specs it offers and its consistent and impressive sales performance in the monthly Australian sales chart figures, the line up of the new 11-litre trucks is going to give some of its competitors some headaches we reckon.
Price and the ability to match the likes and might of brands like Isuzu, which continues to rise in the heavy duty sector, will be challenges for Ben Nye and his team at Scania. However if anyone can do it this team can. They are the ‘little brand that can’ in many ways.
We are sure that Nye and his team have high expectations, but they also made no bold volume or market share predictions at the launch so they can’t be called out in 12 or 18 months time for not meeting grand and overly optimistic sales claims. That is smart and appropriate.
They go about their roles with purposeful intent and resolve and with these new weapons we reckon some of its opponents might find them selves under fire from Scania in coming times. It will be interesting to see how they go.
