IAA 2018: Ford Trucks unveils F-MAX, the “International Truck of the Year”

Ford Otosan, Ford’s largest commercial vehicle production base in Europe, unveiled its new tractor F-MAX at the IAA Commercial Vehicles 2018, in Hannover. Haydar Yenigün, CEO of Ford Otosan, initiated his talk by eulogizing the company’s success over the last 60 years, as it remains Ford Motor Company’s fourth most successful partnership across the world. “Today, we are active in 33 markets, and we offer after-sales service to international transport networks at 142 locations. Our target is to increase our presence in 51 markets by 2020,” he said.

Yenigün spoke about how “Big Boy” a.k.a the F-MAX, is a milestone and an important addition to the heavy commercial vehicles brand of the company. “Ford Trucks has a very challenging promise. Saying “sharing the load” as a brand promise, we commit ourself to understand customers’ needs and share all kinds of load that they might have.” said Yenigün. “We developed our new tractor with Ford’s principles of comfort, power, efficiency, and technology at its heart. To ensure that the design guarantees the most in terms of efficiency and practicality, we examined every part and every detail over and over again.”

The F-MAX comes with a 2.5-meter long cabin, which features an all-new aerodynamic design, with 2160mm floor-to-ceiling height and 260mm of seat adjustment, offering drivers a bit more space than usual. The cabin provides for storage modeled like the ones in airplanes, and a 90-degree foldable upper bed. The new tractor offers a high-performance engine with 500 PS, 2500 Nm and 400 kW of braking power, with fuel consumption being optimized by 6% over previous models.

The F-MAX also decreases maintenance costs by up to 7% and offers longer maintenance intervals, delivering lower total cost of ownership. “With ConnecTruck technology, our new tractor is the first heavy commercial vehicle with connectivity features. And ConnecTruck allows drivers to connect with their vehicles,” said Yenigün.

The ConnecTruck feature enables remote monitoring of the vehicle using remote diagnostic and over-the-air software. It also comes with a topographic map, that helps F-MAX analyze road conditions, permitting it to improve efficiency and reduce fuel consumption by up to 4%. The ConnecTruck Module and Ford Trucks cloud would act as a data gateway for third-party FMS to integrate seamlessly with the vehicle and access select data.

The engine was designed and tested by 500 Ford Otosan engineers over five years, with tests being carried out across 11 countries using 233 prototype units. In total, the engine went through 15,500 hours of lab testing and racked up over 3 million miles on road testing.

The F-MAX in its global debut has won the International Truck of the Year 2019 award, which was presented to Yenigün at the event. Gianenrico Griffini, chairman of the International Truck of the Year (IToY) jury, spoke about how the journalists from his team appreciated the performance, the comfort, and quietness at the cabin, calling it “truly a long-haul cab.”

Ford Trucks also showcased its F-Vision Future Truck, a fully electrically-powered concept truck with level 4 automation – the first concept truck from the company. “The concept model reveals Ford Trucks’ future vision on electrification, autonomous and connected drive, lightweight and zero carbon emission products. It cares about humans’ priorities both inside the cab and on the road, as well as the load being carried, and aims constantly to connect with the environment and users,” the company said in a statement.