An “intelligent” heavy-truck powertrain from Volvo Trucks has won the Technical Achievement Award from North American Truck Writers, a committee of transportation and logistics reporters and editors. The annual award spotlights currently available products or services that show innovation, technical excellence, wide applicability, and real benefits for commercial truck operators, the writers group said.
Volvo’s I-Torque Powertrain claims high fuel economy by combining a turbo-compounded diesel, a 13-speed automated manual transmission, a low numerical (“fast”) axle ratio, and load sensing software for cruising at low engine revs. Meanwhile, the system’s electronic controls use real-time map-based data and GPS positioning to manage speed and gear shifting while ascending and descending grades. It is available in several Volvo truck models.
The 2023 award was announced at a March 1 awards luncheon during the Technology & Maintenance Council’s Annual Meeting and Truck Exposition in Orlando. Accepting was Duane Tegels, product marketing manager for Volvo Powertrain.
“We’re very happy to receive this award,” Tegels said. “The engineers worked hard on this. And we’re getting good feedback from the fleets. It’s a great fuel-efficiency tool.”
The I-Torque Powertrain was one of five finalists chosen from an initial list of 16 products suggested by the truck writers group, according to Tom Berg, who headed the nine-member judges panel. Nominations, discussions and voting was done by email over a two-week period in February.
The other four nominees were:
• Detroit Assurance 5.0 system – Electronic safety devices that help the driver keep a truck in its lane and under control to avoid and mitigate collisions;
