MAN Truck & Bus Introduces New MAN Truck Generation in Bilbao, Spain

MAN Truck & Bus introduces a completely newly developed truck generation for the first time in 20 years, which is consistently oriented towards the changing requirements of the transportation industry and sets new standards for – among other things – assistance systems, driver orientation and digital networking. The new truck generation thus represents the development of MAN Truck & Bus from vehicle manufacturer to a provider of intelligent and sustainable transport solutions. With fuel savings of up to eight percent, the new MAN Truck Generation achieves significant reductions in CO2. The newly developed turn assist helps to prevent serious accidents in urban traffic – four years before the legally prescribed introduction. The lane change assistant also warns the driver of vehicles in the next lanes. MAN has involved customers and drivers in the development of the new MAN Truck Generation from the beginning, so that their requirements could consistently be made part of the new vehicle.

The new MAN Truck Generation follows in the footsteps of legendary series. The MAN TGA, which was presented in 2000, was formative for truck construction. Not only does the new MAN Truck Generation follow suit, it also brings a new level of comfort, safety, efficiency, reliability, service as well as connectivity and digitalisation.

“Simplifying Business” – the changing transportation industry

Today, the requirements in all areas of the transportation industry are more diverse and complex than ever – forecasts for the future indicate that fundamental transformation of the industry is in “full gear”. This brings great challenges with it – the transport volume in the EU alone is to increase by an additional 40 percent in the next 20 years. At the same time, strict legal regulations are intended to reduce CO2 emissions by 15 percent by 2025 (with an additional reduction by 30 percent by 2030). To make matters worse, there is a growing shortage of drivers. According to current statistics, in Germany there will be a shortage of around 150,000 qualified professional drivers in the next two years alone. Additionally, increasingly comprehensive digitalisation across all logistics processes sets a fast pace for transport companies.

“Our customers expect us to provide them with answers to these questions, and rightly so,” summarises Joachim Drees, the MAN Chairman of the Executive Board. “For their sake, we need to be one step ahead of these changes with all their direct and indirect effects. This is a huge, but at the same time, extremely exciting task – it means that we need to think in different, new dimensions as the manufacturer of our products. We do this with our new truck generation.”

This is why the new MAN truck generation offers everything which customers and drivers have always valued and expected from their MAN vehicles – only even better. It unites tried-and-true virtues with developments which are absolutely future-oriented, in order to take the burden off freight forwarders and drivers and make their daily work easier, despite increasingly complex framework conditions. In doing so, MAN is focussing on four core topics: the driver in their work place, the vehicle’s efficiency and its reliable usability, as well as the strong and competent partnership for customers.

“Excellent driver fit” – the driver is the focus

In order to optimise the work place in the truck and to adjust it to better meet the daily requirements of the driver, their performance and motivation need to be placed at the forefront. After all, the decisive building blocks for a transport company’s economic success are the commitment and satisfaction of drivers. This is why the new MAN truck generation sets standards in terms of user-friendliness, optimum ergonomics, operation which is more intuitive and reliable, networking with digital devices and applications and, last but not least, optimum space, a well-thought-out storage concept and perfect sleeping comfort – all this geared towards needs which were determined based on experience. This is because MAN consistently included the expertise and feedback of drivers and business people throughout the entire development process. Modern assistance systems such as the newly developed turn assist, the traffic jam assistant as well as lane change assist reduce the strain on the driver and ensure increased safety in road traffic.

“Great efficiency & economy”

The Euro 6d engine range, which was introduced back in 2019, realises its full efficiency potential with the new MAN Truck Generation. The perfect interplay of the units with additional, newly developed consumption-reducing driveline and software components provides the future series with a trailblazing level of efficiency. In this way, the new MAN Truck Generation saves up to eight percent of fuel compared to the Euro 6c predecessor version in classic long-haul transport applications, and thus achieves a clear reduction in CO2.

The improved aerodynamics of the new vehicle design also play their part in this reduction. Furthermore, MAN offers additional targeted and practice-oriented training and instruction options with digital applications, in order to support drivers in even more efficient driving methods.

Comprehensive product improvements for components and in the areas of maintenance and service reduce service life costs. Likewise, the new MAN truck generation offers significant payload advantages for weight-sensitive application sectors.

“Optimised uptime” – utmost availability over the entire service life

How “good” a truck is when it is in use largely depends on how efficiently and easily it fulfils its transport task. An important parameter here is reliability. MAN endeavours to make the tried and true even better with the new truck generation, in order to ensure the long-standing product quality (which is repeatedly confirmed in the TÜV report) for the future as well. Take for example the newly developed, simplified, powerful and future-proof electronics architecture, which will significantly improve and expand the functionalities of the trucks.

Additionally, a comprehensively further developed, digitalised maintenance management system reduces operating costs and ensures maximum availability of the new MAN TG vehicles. Fleet management and drivers are supported through numerous digital functionalities and services.

“Strong partner” – competent and personal partnership

At the same time as the new truck generation, MAN is introducing a new consultation and offer system which is entirely oriented towards the needs of the customer. It follows a product logic which is consistently oriented towards the application profile. This allows for a new MAN TGX, TGS, TGM or TGL to be put together into a truck that fits the exact transport task, using comprehensively adjustable and flexible configuration options. This includes individually coordinated services from maintenance, financing and digital services, which make the truck a holistic, integrated transport solution – all this from a single source, with competent personal contact partners. Furthermore, MAN Individual provides a comprehensive portfolio of options to enhance the vehicle and make customer-specific adaptations ex-works.

From customer to product

The claim of the new MAN truck generation of “Simply my Truck” is not just a slogan, but a significant foundation for development – to find out how the ideal work place and living space in a truck should be designed first hand, the MAN developers presented over 700 drivers (including during visits to truck stops and service stations) with different prototype solutions. The feedback from the professionals and their personal wishes went directly into the new series.

Additionally, MAN invited 300 national and international customers from a total of 16 countries to Munich, in order to define the most important requirements for a new vehicle with them in workshops. The developers compared this diverse input with the feedback from the driver interviews, and implemented the resulting core ideas into the numerous innovative features of the new MAN truck generation.

At the same time, MAN is continuously developing the performance of its Sales and After Sales areas further. Based on over 50,000 personal customer surveys a year, new services and products were created which help the customer to optimally utilise their new MAN TGX, TGS, TGM or TGL.

Comprehensive improvements in the production and sales process

The new MAN truck generation does not only entail a new product for MAN; it also involves comprehensive improvements in Production and Sales.

In order for series production of the new MAN truck generation to be ready to go and to be able to simultaneously offer the previous models during the transition phase until the end of 2020, MAN invested around 100 million euros at the Munich site alone, for example. There, up to 500 cabs from the comprehensive range of the new MAN truck generation and the previous TG series are produced a day.

Additional investments amounting to 85 million euros went into the new cab paint shop of the main factory, which can now meet the increased output of cab construction without any problems. It is one of the most state of the art and environmentally friendly plants in Europe and another step on the way to a “green factory”, which MAN is dedicated to achieving.

At the plant in Steyr, Austria where the TGL and TGM series continue to roll off the production line, a new and cutting-edge paint shop was also put into operation. All plastic attachment parts for the entire MAN production network will be exclusively processed there in the future.

Alongside production, MAN also restructured its offer process with the launch of the new truck generation. At the centre of this is a fundamental change in method in product logic which manifests itself in new configuration processes and tools. When creating the offer, the core thought here is to place the individual transport task of the customer at the forefront. This results in a portfolio which is more closely aligned with the market and customers, with a completely integrated range of trucks, After Sales services, finance and digital services. The configuration and offer process is thereby not just much faster, but also provides a high level of flexibility when putting together the perfect tool for the customer’s transport task.

The new MAN Truck Generation – the project in numbers

The introduction of the new MAN Truck Generation is the most ambitious project from the company in 20 years:

12,000,000 working hours were spent as part of the project

4,000,000 test kilometres driven up to market launch

2,800,000 lines of software code

167,000 working hours were put into the new vehicle design

Around 22,000 new item numbers were integrated into all departments

3,000 cab colours are available as standard

2,100 MAN employees were directly involved in the project

8 cab sizes are available for the new MAN Truck Generation

Up to 8 percent less fuel consumption

4 series: MAN TGX, TGS, TGM or TGL

1 team: the 36,000 employees at MAN Truck & Bus

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China Special Vehicle Adivsor