“ESCOT contributes to easy driving on tough terrain and greatly improves fuel efficiency.”
Toshi Odawara, Vice President, UD Trucks Heavy Duty Product Line, talks about the unique qualities New Quester brings to the construction segment.
What do you think are the most important new features on New Quester for the construction industry?
Quester already has strong assets for the construction segment. It can easily cope with tough assignments, with its robust chassis and options such as the high ground clearance, steel bumper, hub reduction and tough drivelines capable of higher payloads. Additionally, we have added our in-house automated manual gearbox ESCOT, which contributes to easy driving in various road conditions and greatly improves fuel efficiency.
What are the main ESCOT benefits for construction?
ESCOT automatically starts with Eco mode, which gives the right shifting performance capturing the road and load condition for better fuel efficiency. For tough construction assignments, we need to have stable gear shifting in rough road conditions, otherwise will be difficult to operate in such areas.
For this we have added the PWR+ mode from Eco mode. This will provide smoother and stable gear shifting operations at slow speed in rough road conditions, such as on construction sites.
Allison is ideal for stop-start operations. Can you expand a bit on its qualities for construction in particular?
Allison is ideal for short haul trips where you have many stop-start operations. Construction assignments are often in cities and regional areas, and delivering ready mix concrete and other construction materials in these cities is challenging. Allison is suitable for this type of operation, as clutch maintenance costs are reduced and any driver can achieve good fuel efficiency.
How do lowered tare weight and improved driver comfort impact positively on construction?
In countries where have strict legal load limits, you must sacrifice the load if chassis weight is heavy. Lowered tare will increase the payload and productivity of operations. Also, we have introduced new air suspended seats with lumber support to improve driver comfort. This will lessen the strain on drivers when negotiating rough roads.
