Green Volvo diesel mated to silver I-Shift AMT is by far the most common powertrain installed in Volvo trucks in its New River Valley, Va., plant.

Green Volvo diesel mated to silver I-Shift AMT is by far the most common powertrain installed in Volvo trucks in its New River Valley, Va., plant. 

Volvo Trucks says its customers currently choose Volvo diesels in 92% of all the trucks it builds, and 74.7% get Volvo’s I-Shift automated mechanical transmission. I-Shifts are only available with Volvo engines.

The high “take” for Volvo’s integrated powertrain reflects customer satisfaction with the efficiency and reliability of the products, said Seth Gruber, the builder’s marketing communications director, during a Tuesday press event at Volvo’s plant in Dublin, Va. Those penetrations have climbed steadily from about 52% for Volvo engines and 15% for the I-Shift in 2008.

Volvo also offers Cummins’ ISX15 in VN road tractors and Eaton’s manual and automated transmissions in certain models, but fewer buyers are spec’ing them. A small number of customers spec Cummins Westport natural gas engines.

Volvo builds all of its heavy trucks and tractors for North America at the Virginia plant, Gruber noted. Volvo Group’s powertrain plant in Hagerstown, Md., produces D11, D13 and D16 diesels and I-Shift transmissions, plus versions of those components for Mack Trucks, its sister company.

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Tom Berg

Tom Berg

Former Senior Contributing Editor

Journalist since 1965, truck writer and editor since 1978.

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