COVER STORY
Hino Hybrid
Hino is the first truck maker to release a series-production hybrid in the Australian market. The new Dutro hybrid was launched at the Queensland Truck Show last May.
The hybrid vehicle is the logical step to cutting fuel economy and limiting greenhouse gas emissions, according to Toyota, which owns Hino, the corporation’s truck manufacturer. Toyota, now the world’s largest automobile producer and easily the most profitable car and truck maker, is spending a fortune on hybrid R&D.
It would take a brave commentator to suggest that this highly successful corporation is wasting its hard-won R&D money by investing so heavily in hybrid technology.
Truck & Trailer Australia has been evaluating hybrid cars since they were released here in the late 1990s, so we’re familiar with their development and their real-world behaviour. It’s indisputable that in stop-start conditions a hybrid vehicle has the potential to save fuel, when compared with a similar, but non-hybrid vehicle.
Car testers point out, quite correctly, that a diesel passenger car can achieve petrol-hybrid fuel economy, without the hybrid’s initial expense or complexity. Doubtless the next generation of passenger car and light commercial hybrids will use diesel engines in conjunction with a hybrid electric driveline to lower the bar still further.
In the case of light truck hybrids the starting point is already diesel, so the hybrid’s claimed 20 percent economy advantage should give it the edge over straight diesel trucks.

DIESEL ENGINE TECHNOLOGY
Cummins comes clean
Cummins is well advanced in future engine and emissions technology reports Jim Gibson after a candid discussion with senior technical and engineering specialists at its world headquarters in the US.
“Applying cooled EGR to an engine is a significant technical challenge,” says John Wall, Cummins vice president and chief technical officer. “SCR is a much lower level of challenge.”
Cummins has a foot in each camp; selling engines to the world’s markets it can offer an SCR standard to meet the European EURO4 level.
Cummins’ engineers say its cooled EGR technology has already reached the 2010 US EPA levels (2011 ADR80-03) of NOx (nitrous oxide) 0.2g and PM (particulate matter) 0.01g with its 6.7-litre ISB turbo diesel engine fitted in the 2007 model Dodge Ram heavy-duty pickup in the US.
This level of attenuation is a more than 90 per cent reduction in each pollutant, compared to US EPA 04, our next ADR80-02 level in 2008.

BUSINESS ADVICE
How to network
One of the most important assets for growing your business is your referral network. All businesses can benefit from building a strong referral network: word-of-mouth remains the most cost-effective way of gaining new customers, and these customers are more open to forming a business relationship as someone they trust recommended you.
Of course, it starts and ends with customer service. Word spreads about this aspect – and never more quickly than when it’s bad: dissatisfied customers tell 10 people about their experiences, whereas delighted customers may tell no more than four people.
Create Great Customer Experiences
So always keep in mind that a referral network can work both positively and negatively. You won't generate those vital referrals by being rude to customers, treating them in an offhand manner, and making no effort to show them how much you appreciate their business. On the other hand, if you genuinely value your customers and aim to create great customer experiences at every contact point in the business, they’ll happily pass your details on to the people who really count: potential customers.
But don’t assume they'll do all the work. Ask your customers for referrals, too: the ideal time is whenever they mention how helpful/efficient/service-oriented you are.
Each time you obtain business through a referral, be sure to thank the person who referred you. Call them, or write a brief note. Consider including a small gift, such as a discount on the next job, a lottery ticket, or a charity raffle ticket for a high-value item such as a car.
And always make a point of thanking your new customers for their business.

WOMEN IN TRANSPORT
Marketing whiz Natalie Petronio
The path taken by Natalie Petronio to her current position is hardly the traditional one for a person working in the transport industry: educated at a Melbourne girl’s school, eight years of ballet, a communications degree from Monash University with a specialisation in marketing and a minor in politics and journalism, a stint in fashion advertising and some formal studies in photography.
There was no underlying interest in trucks, no family connections to the industry that may have been even a subconscious driver. Instead, Natalie’s passion was strictly aviation. Ten years ago, at age 20, she obtained her pilot's licence (she's qualified to fly the Piper Warrior and the beefier Piper Arrow), and she recently embarked on her training towards a commercial helicopter licence. Before starting with DaimlerChrysler, she worked at the International Civil Aviation University as academic assistant, a job she loved. Sadly, though, it was short lived as the company folded.
Natalie joined Mercedes-Benz Australia – the pre-merger name for the then much smaller organisation – as marketing assistant in Service and Parts. Nine years and several roles later, she's still with DaimlerChrysler – not the traditional career path for a Gen-Xer, either, but testament to the learning and career opportunities this international company offers someone with a low boredom threshold and an insatiable hunger for new challenges.

BRISBANE TRUCK SHOW
All the lastest rigs and gear
Once again the Queensland event, held at the ancient RNA site last May, drew record crowds to what is clearly the most successful truck show in the Australian calendar. However, this internationally ranked show is in desperate need of a venue to match the exhibitors’ outlays on stand space and product display. We listened to complaints from many exhibitors about the lack of modern display facilities, the parsimonious lack of air conditioning during the set-up days and the usual breaks in supply of electrical power.
At this year’s event T&TA and our stable mate magazine Truckin’ Life made the coveted Truck of the Show and Best Presented Truck Awards. The winners were Hino and Western Star, respectively. Also, both magazines were the initiators and promoters of the 2007 National Apprentice Challenge, in which teams of diesel mechanic apprentices from workshops around the country competed.
The Commercial Vehicle Industry Association of Queensland and Kenworth enthusiastically backed the scheme, which proved to be a great drawcard and heightened awareness of the need for intensified apprentice training in the road transport industry.

ISUZU TRAILER
Bigger than ever
Working with the space limitations of an 85-year-old heritage-protected factory led to an innovative solution to transporting steel.
In the half-light of the pre-dawn hours the despatch office at the Smorgan Steel yard in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine is bustling with activity as Metropolitan Express trucks arrive and their drivers pickup the delivery paperwork that tells them what they’ll be hauling and where they’ll be hauling it.
Just around the corner, in the loading yard, sit a number of trailers already loaded with the steel reinforcing bar they will drop at construction sites all over Victoria in the coming hours.
It’s a ritual that is repeated day in, day out at the historic factory that dates back to the 1920s and was once the largest employer in Melbourne’s working class western suburbs.
Within half an hour each truck will have been hooked up to its assigned trailer, the driver will have secured the load, and will have left, and the despatch office and yard outside will fall quiet, at least for the next hour or so until the trucks begin returning for their next load.

Also in this issue: Visa 457, winners of the National Apprentice Challenge, new Triton models, columns on money, technical issues, logistics and much more.