October 2012, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
Like most commercial truck sectors, sales of full-size cargo vans and walk-in vans are thriving and even booming - but there are casualties. The electric truck business, while still viable, is taking a hit, with two suppliers in financial straits
Tags: Light & Medium, Cargo Vans, Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, General Motors, GM G-series, Nissan, Nissan NV Cargo van, CNG, Ford Transit Connect, Freightliner, Navistar, Smith Electric Vehicles, Walk-in Van
October 2012, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
As medium-duty truck engine technology advances, more complicated repairs lead to more unscheduled downtime, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2012 U.S. Medium-Duty Truck Engine and Transmission Study
Tags: Light & Medium
September 2012, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
If the health of the economy is tied directly to commercial medium-duty truck sales, as is the historical case, then the sky has clouded a little. It isn't falling, though, because sales are still trending up. All builders we talked with reported decent and sometimes robust percentage increases over last year, which in turn was up over 2010
Tags: Light & Medium
February 2012, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
Driving this Canter FG was like seeing an old friend who's aged gracefully
Tags: Light & Medium
January 2012, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
I recently sold my '87 Dodge W150 pickup, and I don't miss it at all.
Oh, I liked it when I bought it a year earlier, because it was a funky Power Ram 4x4
Tags: Light & Medium
November 2011, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
It's a story we've heard before, but a pretty good one: Sales are up, products are improving, and buyers have many choices of trucks to do their hauling job
Tags: Light & Medium
October 2011, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
Depending on how the segment is counted, the market for full-size cargo vans is up about 12% over last year, which in turn was up 14% over 2009, builder sources say
Tags: Light & Medium
October 2011, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
Almost left idle by the high cost of fuel in 2008 and the recession, sales of pickup trucks are now recovering
Tags: Light & Medium
August 2011, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
If there were an 11th Commandment, it would read: "Thou shalt not cut into thine wiring." Cutting and splicing and probing with pointed circuit testers can and do cause electrical grief
Tags: Light & Medium
August 2011, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Jim Park, Equipment Editor
There's no such thing as a cookie-cutter utility body anymore.
Tags: Light & Medium
April 2011, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
More power from smaller packages. That sums up what's been happening in medium-duty engines in the previous decade, where diesels of modest displacement are making more horsepower and torque than was possible before the advent of electronic controls and advanced combustion methods
Tags: Light & Medium
March 2011, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Commentary Tom Berg, Senior Editor
Why do the Japan-based importers continue trying to sell low cab-over-engine trucks when North America is conventional-cab territory? The short answer is that LCOEs are what they have to sell
Tags: Light & Medium
January 2011, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
Rush Enterprises is probably best known as North America's largest Peterbilt dealer. But realizing they could only go so far with their franchises from the Paccar manufacturer, leaders saw midrange trucks as a way to grow and to diversify in products and operations
Tags: Light & Medium
December 2010, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
Retail sales of medium-duty trucks are generally climbing as the economy improves, and the time is right for a sales war, at least in the view of the market leader, Navistar International
Tags: Light & Medium
October 2010, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
The economy's slowly improving, and so are the Class 3 to 5 segment's truck sales, up modestly to substantially since the 2009 trough, depending on who's citing the numbers.
Tags: Light & Medium
August 2010, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
The recovering economy is resuscitating the business of building cargo vans, along with every other kind of commercial vehicle. Conversations with the major players in this business reveal trends in buyers' engine choices and in weight categories
Tags: Light & Medium
July 2010, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
The economy's coming back and so are sales of pickup trucks, as consumers, tradesmen and fleets resume ordering as their incomes and needs increase. Sales this spring are up sharply compared to last yea
Tags: Light & Medium
March 2010, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Diana Britton, Managing Editor
Contenders for the title of best medium-duty and heavy-duty truck gathered at the St. Louis Regional Airport last week to strut their stuff to the panel of judges made up of eight magazine editor
Tags: Light & Medium
December 2009, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
Some manufacturers have enough existing trucks to last well into the new year, so are delaying the start of their 2011 model years, while others will begin them as soon as January
Tags: Light & Medium
November 2009, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
Look for altered model years from many builders after Jan. 1 as they prepare to begin installing EPA 2010-legal diesels in their commercial trucks at various points next year
Tags: Light & Medium
November 2009, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
Advances in gasoline and diesel engines for pickup trucks are just in time to catch the beginning of the end of the recession, the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930
Tags: Light & Medium
October 2009, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
A Transit Connect is roughly 2 feet shorter and weighs about 1,500 pounds less than an E-150 van. The TC's high roof makes it roomier than it might look in a photograp
Tags: Light & Medium
October 2009, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor
The gasoline share will only increase, because Ford Motor Co., the market leader, is dropping the Navistar-built PowerStroke diesel following lawsuits over warranty claims and competitive issues, leaving its E-series vans with gasoline-only power in the new yea
Tags: Light & Medium
October 2009, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Bob Johnson, director of fleet relations, NTEA
Maximizing fleet productivity starts with getting the most out of your vehicles.
Tags: Light & Medium
June 2009, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Equipment Editor
This Kenworth T170 is an example. Its chassis and powertrain are engineered for Class 5 hauling jobs, but its big-rig-style cab makes you feel like you got more than you expected
Tags: Light & Medium
June 2009, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Equipment Editor
Shockingly high fuel prices, along with the mortgage crisis and deflation of the housing-price bubble, have sapped Americans' ability to buy, buy, buy, and the adjustment has affected all the industries that purchase and use trucks, especially construction
Tags: Light & Medium
June 2009, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Equipment Editor
It's a transition time for Class 6 and 7 trucks as American and imported commercial vehicles move into model-year 2009-10 with only minor changes from the previous two years
Tags: Light & Medium
June 2009, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Equipment Editor
The mighty have finally fallen. Full-size pickup trucks, for many years the best-selling vehicles in the U.S., have tumbled in popularity since the steep run-up in gasoline prices
Tags: Light & Medium
June 2009, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Equipment Editor
Our lists of commercial truck models in their various weight classes continue to shrink as corporations restructure and contract. This has been a fixture of business in general and the automotive worl
Tags: Light & Medium
May 2009, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Equipment Editor
Some of the earliest freight-hauling trucks were electric-powered, but they disappeared in the 1920s when internal combustion engines proved less costly and operationally more flexible
Tags: Light & Medium
May 2009, TruckingInfo.com - Feature
By Tom Berg, Senior Equipment Editor
The once-popular Navistar-built Power Stroke V-8 diesel will be gone as an option from Ford SuperDuty pickups and E-series vans by the end of this year, as part of the settlement of a two-year-old legal dispute between the two builders.
Tags: Light & Medium