UD Trucks Southern Africa (UDTSA) has launched its new Quester extra-heavy truck range onto the domestic market, with the vehicles to be assembled at the company’s plant in Rosslyn, Pretoria.

Vehicles will be assembled from semi-knocked down kits imported from Thailand. The Quester range will also be exported to the south-east Africa region, which encompasses 18 countries.

“We were fortunate that the plant did not require a major investment – R4.5-million – to produce the Quester,” says UDTSA MD Rory Schulz.

The Rosslyn plant’s capacity is around 6 000 vehicles a year, as a one-shift operation, with current output between 3 000 and 3 500 trucks a year.

Schulz notes that it is UDTSA’s “longer-term ambitions for the plant to produce a model for the global market, or at least for Africa”.

This will allow the company to increase local content on the vehicles assembled at Rosslyn.

The Quester product line-up has been specifically designed and developed for growing markets like Southern and East Africa, notes Schulz.

The range includes 13 derivatives, “exceptionally robust vehicles made to withstand even the harshest of environments”.

The Quester range includes freight carriers, truck tractors, rigids, as well as trucks for specific construction applications, such as tippers and mixers.

For the first time, UD Trucks will also offer an 8 × 4 model option.

UD Trucks’ products have traditionally been designed with the company’s home market – Japan – in mind. However, Japan is a small, highly efficient, technologically minded island with heavy traffic, notes Schulz.

Up to now, this meant that Japanese products had to be adapted to suit the conditions prevalent in many other global markets.

However, the Quester has been developed, from the ground up, with emerging markets in mind, ensuring a more robust vehicle.

“UD Trucks aims to give Quester customers everything they want, but not more than they need,” says Schulz.

“But no compromises were made in terms of uptime and fuel consumption.”

The Quester is viewed as UD Trucks’ most cost-efficient truck yet, in terms of price and operations.

The price positioning on the Quester range is between 8% and 15% less expensive than UDTSA’s other extra-heavy truck range, the Quan.

The long-term plan set out by UD Trucks in Japan is to merge the Quan and Quester platforms, with the Quester as the base, says Schulz.

The Quester range also offers a telematics system as standard with all the new models, as well as a free, three-year/150 000 km UD Basic service contract.

Fuel consumption on the Quester is around 30% lower than other comparable products in developing markets, he adds.

Part of UD Trucks’ drive to cut the Quester’s fuel costs is the driver guidance available on the vehicle. This sytem provides information on the best way to drive the truck under current conditions, explains Schulz.

“The driver can impact fuel use by between 20% and 25%.”

Continous poor driving will see the fleet operator receiving an SMS indicating that fuel is being wasted.

Schulz believes the Quester will be especially well suited to the waste management, public utilities and construction sectors.