Brisbane's Queen Street Mall will play host to the Australian debut of the new Volvo FH
May 8, 2013
Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall will play host to the Australian debut of the new Volvo FH.
Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk will unveil Volvo’s new heavy duty prime mover in front of 500 Volvo factory workers at 8am on May 15.
Volvo claims the new FH platform is the company’s most advanced and safest truck yet.
Volvo Trucks Australia Vice President Gary Bone says the new truck boasts world-first innovations and will set the industry benchmark for safety in Australia.
“Volvo is the world leader in safety and technology and in preparation for this launch we’ve crash tested over 25 trucks and have run over 1,000 simulations,” he says.
One of the new features of the FH Volvo is called I-See, which enables the truck to remember hills on regular routes.
“It has a built-in memory which can store up to 4,000 hills and acts like an autopilot that handles gear-changes and maintains truck momentum,” Bone says.
“The I-See technology not only helps our customers by reducing their fuel costs, it also reduces our impact on the environment.”
The truck has undergone extensive crash and field testing during its development and is a brand new vehicle from the ground up.
It was launched in Europe last year. It will cater for ADR804 (Euro 6) emissions compliance levels when they are eventually mandated in Australia.
Modifications also had to be carried out to Volvo’s Wacol factory with some roller doors needing to be raised to accommodate the extra height of the new FH cab.
“We had to raise the roof of the Wacol factory because the vehicle is a lot taller than previous models,” Bone says.
“With over 500 employees, Brisbane really is the home of Volvo Trucks in Australia, and last year we invested $9 million to prepare the production plant for this new model.”
