The Influence of Advanced Technology on Future Truck Development

Today’s technical development is forging ahead at a pace that would have seemed incredible only a few years ago. Many of us find it difficult to grasp and follow events in high technology — computers, micro-electronics, new materials, biotechnology and so on. How can this technical development be of any interest to something as mundane and unglamorous as trucks and buses? Truck engineering is a mature technology with a century of evolution behind it. So can we expect any revolutionary news? It all depends on our expectations on the degree of novelty. But developments in high technology also open new opportunities to truck designers, provided that we know what our customers need and what they demand of our products, and provided that we are sufficiently curious, interested and creative to put the new technology to use and make our seemingly simple products more advanced and better suited for the transport duties for which they are intended.