december2022 - 24

" Over the last 18-24 months, PacLease has seen
more than an 80% take-rate for integrated powertrains
and AMTs among our longhaul customers
and more than 90% in the regional haul segment,
an increase of roughly 20% and 15% respectively, "
Hruby said.
While efficiency is in higher demand, uptime
still reigns supreme.
" If I were to reference a common theme among
our customers in today's lease and rental industry,
maximizing uptime is on everyone's agenda, "
Hruby said.
Telematics and other smart technologies have
helped PacLease customers with uptime. Paccar
Connected Truck and Paccar Solutions provides
customers access to remote diagnostics, over-the-air
updates, and service management portals that allow
them to track live truck performance and health.
" Remote Diagnostics allows us to see any issues
with a truck in real-time, " Hruby said. " This way,
we can determine when and where the truck
should be serviced, allowing our customers to
realize more uptime. "
Keeping up with maintenance is even more
important as the industry overall contends with
aging trucks. In both 2020 and 2021, the average
trade cycle was 8.7 years, according to American
Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). That's
the highest in a decade.
" The longer a fleet waits to replace their aging
equipment, the more it can compound the financial
burden of unscheduled maintenance events
and downtime at higher repair costs and potentially
longer service times, " Hruby said.
If fleet age is not an issue, then the next
priority should be ensuring there is diligence
in the management and scheduling of regular
preventive maintenance in compliance with
OEM-recommended intervals, Hruby said.
Trailer outlook
ATRI also found that the average trade cycle for
trailers stretched from 12.3 years in 2020 to 15.4
last year. Those older trailers can only provide
adequate service to fleets for so long, though.
" The age of fleets is trending up, and they're
wanting to get those [trailers] replaced, " Wabash's
Clinkenbeard said.
This has led to strong orders overall. In 2021,
trailer orders were just shy of 250,000 units. In
October 2022, FTR forecasted this year would
hit 303,000 trailer orders, with a 7% increase to
325,000 next year.
Wabash has seen some improvement in delivery
over the recent months, Clinkenbeard explained,
and the company's record Q3 revenue of $655.2
million backs that up. The Lafayette, Indianabased
company's net sales increased 35.8% over
Q2, and total backlog was at $2.3 billion as of Sept.
30, up 20% over Q3 2021.
These new trailers are a lot smarter than their
replacements, which, at 15+ years, would pre-date
the smartphone boom. And now fleets can take
advantage of the trailer connectivity increase
by spec'ing cargo sensors and trailer telematics
devices when they order them.
" With our customers, the data analytics side has
grown exponentially over the last few years, and
24 Fleet Maintenance | December 2022
» Yokohama released 12 different tire products since the pandemic began and expanded its
Mississippi manufacturing plant. Like other tire OEs, the company also has had to increase
prices over that time as well to compensate for rising rubber and other materials costs.
Yokohama Tire
»Wabash launched its new Acutherm thermal management portfolio for
refrigerated trailers this fall. Using EcoNex composite material, the trailers
are lighter weight, insulate better, and offer financial benefits to users.
Wabash
" OEMs are
maximizing
what they can
build given the
constraints. Next
year looks a lot like
the current year. "
David Giesen, Stoughton Trailers
we're definitely seeing a lot more activity in that
space, " Clinkenbeard said. " The way of the future
is more connected assets and better visibility to
your assets and how they are performing so that
you can plan for maintenance rather than have
the roadside calls that are costly and disruptive. "
And that data becomes more readily available
for maintenance managers to drive data-driven
decisions on their maintenance and improve the
uptime of their trailers.
Clinkenbeard also noted that fleets' quest for
improved efficiency and uptime means more tire
pressure monitoring systems and automatic tire
inflation systems, both of which have seen " pretty
good adoption " rates from Wabash customers.
Hyundai Translead also holds a positive
outlook for 2023 " due to pent-up demand. " It also
agrees that smart trailers are the way of the future.
" New technology continues to become more
commonplace-there are steady increases across
the industry in most items that will help reduce
maintenance, increase fuel savings, or provide

december2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of december2022