Volvo Trucks North America unveiled the latest development in its connectivity offerings, Volvo Connect. This is a portal that enables fleets to monitor and maintain the health of their vehicles through connectivity access to vehicle insights and reporting. It was announced during the American Trucking Associations’ management conference in Austin, Texas, over the weekend, as the latest example of how the company is “leading the shift” and challenging the status quo.

“Today’s trucks are almost iPhones on wheels,” said Peter Voorhoeve, president, Volvo Trucks North America.

Volvo Trucks has 170,000 connected trucks in North America, he pointed out. Already, its connectivity-related offerings include:

• Over the air diagnostics and remote programming

• Volvo Connected Vehicle Analytics Tool

• Volvo Blue Service Contract

Today, however, Voorhoeve said, “Volvo Connect is taking fleet productivity to a new level.”

Volvo Connect provides a digital suite of services, analytics, and reports that deliver fleets a range of truck data, including fuel consumption, idle time, vehicle speed, seat belt information, and location information.

Volvo Connect

Volvo Connect allows fleet managers to access the status of all Volvo trucks in their fleet that have a factory-installed 4G Telematics Gateway. They can get an instant overview of all Volvo trucks in their fleet through the portal, as a group or vehicle by vehicle, and monitor all vehicles in near real time. They can access vehicle and route information, including truck speed and location, fuel level, odometer and engine hours, historical route data, and more.

Volvo Connect provides Remote Diagnostics and Remote Programming visibility, making it easy to identify trucks that have fault events that need to be addressed, as well as any over-the-air software updates needed.

Volvo Connect provides complete visibility to all fault codes identified through Remote Diagnostics. The portal also provides full details from Volvo ASIST for every service case opened.

Customers can keep their trucks’ software up to date with remote programming, monitor and adjust parameter settings, and get easy to read reports covering information such as truck performance, fuel efficiency, and safety. The portal allows fleets to analyze trends and key performance metrics.

The portal provides the ability to check and monitor parameters, ensuring parameters such as maximum allowed road speed and idle shutdown are set correctly and optimized for a truck’s specific transport assignment.

With Remote Programing, fleets already had the ability to update software and parameters without taking trucks out of service. With the new Volvo Connect portal, fleet managers can instantly see software status on each Volvo with a 4G Telematics Gateway and adjust accordingly.

Volvo Connect can amplify the value of remote diagnostics and programming, explained Magnus Gustafson, vice president, Volvo Connected Services.

For example, he said, they have found in working with fleet customers who discovered via the portal that their speed limiting parameters on some of their trucks weren’t what they were supposed to be. From there, the customer can ask Volvo to make a remote parameter change to ensure all the trucks in its fleet are at the correct speed.

Volvo Connect will be available within days. It will be included for two years at no charge on model year 2025 Volvo trucks. Existing customers with 2018 model year or newer trucks can get six months free.

Leading the Shift

Connectivity is just one of the areas Volvo has been investing in as it seeks to “lead the shift,” whether that be decarbonization, safety, or connectivity, said Voorhoeve. He said the company has a goal of zero in both carbon emissions and in accidents.

On display at the booth were the Volvo SuperTruck 2 and a Volvo VNR Electric.

Voorhoeve said SuperTruck 2 was not a concept truck but “a laboratory on wheels – an innovation hub that drives around.” Part of the Department of Energy’s SuperTruck program, the Volvo truck achieved a 134% improvement in freight efficiency (toon miles per gallon) over the baseline 2009 VNL.

Soon, he said, some of the technology in SuperTruck 2 will become available in production Volvo trucks.

Volvo has 6,000 electric trucks operating in 42 countries, according to Voorhoeve. It now has 47 certified EV dealers in 25 states, with another 46 in the certification process.

In order to help customers adopt zero-emission vehicles, earlier this year it introduced a new service offering turkey solutions for EV charging infrastructure.

And it’s testing a fuel-cell-electric truck in Europe, both in cold Sweden and in hot Spain.

Volvo’s mission, Voorhoeve said, is to become the largest sustainable truck company in the world.