Mack has unveiled a new on highway heavy duty class 8 flagship prime mover in America, claiming it’s new Mack Pioneer promises 11 per cent better fuel efficiency than its current flagship, the Anthem.
The famous Bulldog launched the new truck as part of the celebration of its 125th anniversary, unveiling what the venerable Volvo owned US truck brand describes as the most aerodynamic highway truck in its history, and says that it began developing the Pioneer in 2017, the year it debuted its Anthem model
Mack was founded by two brothers , John and Augustus Mack , in Brooklyn in July 1900, .and he company unveiled its new truck in the city where the brand had its roots, pulling the covers off the Pioneer at the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York, with the Manhattan skyline as a backdrop across the water.
Mack says the Pioneer, which will be produced along with the Anthem as its premier long-haul highway truck, and will be available in various sleeper and day cab configurations in the U.S. and Canada for the moment.
President of Mack Trucks North America, Jonathan Randall, said that while a “next-gen” Anthem is in the works. and that iy has found success as a heavy duty Class 8 as a day cab, the Pioneer will become Mack’s premier long-haul product as the brand continues to seek to grow its surprisingly small line haul market share in North America adding that the company is working on a battery-electric version of the Pioneer as well.
In America Mack says it will open its order books for the Pioneer immediately, with full production set to begin this Northern summer.
Given it took almost four years for the Anthem to arrive in Australia following its 2017 launch in the USA, it may be some time before we see the Pioneer hitting roads down under.
The Pioneer features aggressive windshield angles, modernised chassis design, and a digital mirror camera system with HD cameras and in-cab displays, helping improve the truck’s aero and wind noise.
The design team said it started with the driver’s position, saying that it buit everything around 
the driver, including the windscreen and the door architecture, to ensure optimal visibility and aerodynamics.
Mack claims that the aerodynamics of the Pioneer, combined with its engine and transmission upgrades, delivers up to an 11 per cent improvement in fuel efficiency compared with the Anthem.
The Mack says it will also be the most connected truck in its history, with a substantial increase in remote diagnostics and over-the-air software update capabilities.
Mack’s vice president of Highway and product, Fernando Couceiro, said Mack’s pitch to fleets is while they might not have looked to Mack for long-haul equipment in the past, the fact is Mack has always been about uptime.
“That’s never been a problem for us, and I think we’ve always been known for reliability, durability, and things like that—so much that people almost take it for granted,” Couceiro said.
He added that while the Anthem is a competitive product on safety, fuel efficiency, and comfort, the company has high ambitions to grow its on-highway market, saying that just being competitive wasn’t enough.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what Mack claimed the Anthem would do when it launched that truck at the Mid-America Truck Show in Louisville, Kentucky, eight years ago in 2017. The aspiration that Anthem would turn Mack’s line haul market share around has fallen well short of being satisfied, with Anthem still only ranking sixth in the Class 8 Line Haul market last year, with just 6.8 per cent share, compared with the 36.8 per cent share held by clear market leader, Freightliner’s Cascadia, and around 15 per cent each for both the KenworthT680 and its Paccar sister brand Peterbilt 579. Even the underperforming International brand with 10 per cent and Mack’s parent Volvo with 9.9 per cent, outperformed the Bulldog brand in America last year.
“We need to be leaders, take share from our competitors, and we have to be better than that.and this is really what we are doing with the Pioneer—we’re really taking it into a leading position in these three elements: safety, fuel efficiency, and driver comfort,” Couceiro said
Mack’s global president, Stephen Roy, claims the Pioneer will be a truck that drivers want to work in.
“We’re not just introducing a new truck with the Pioneer, we’re redefining what a highway truck can be, taking trucking into the 21st century with features that transform the daily experience of professional drivers who spend an average of 150 hours per month in their trucks,” Roy said.
Mack engineers at the launch detailed what has gone into the nPioneer design claiming several industry-first and cutting-edge features.
Mack’s chief designer, Lukas Yates said the Pioneer’s brand bridge on the grille is distinctive and creates a new signature Mack look for the prime mover that he says integrates headlamps with the grille trim.
“We have also repositioned the signature bulldog hood ornament, removing it from its typical pedestal to incorporate it into the body design, flanked by air intakes, so that it helps manage airflow under the hood,” according to Yates.
Mack North America VP, Jonathan Randall said during the unveiling at the Navy Yard that the Pioneer tells the Mack story with it’s bold, iconic, strong and timeless, embodiment of the brand DNA, and character while taking its customers into the future with advanced design that he said prioritises both driver experience and operational efficiency
Mack claims the Pioneer’s interior was designed around on feedback from dealers and drivers, including a non-branded 40-driver focus group which was surveyed at leading Virginia university, Virginia Tech, that it said offered engineers unbiased evaluations of the cab’s ergonomics and features.
“Professional drivers inspired every aspect of the Pioneer’s interior design, so we reached out to our dealer network to understand pain points and day-to-day nuances, which helped us develop unique features that make a real difference in driver comfort and productivity, ” said Vince Lokers, Mack’s specialist chief designer, who was the chief designer of the Pioneer interior
While the Anthem has lagged its siblings from Volvo in terms of safety, particularly in the early days, the company reckons the Pioneer’s driver safety is a primary concern. with what Mack says is an entirely new proprietary ADAS, which it calls Mack Protect, saying it incorporates the latest active and passive safety technologies for commercial vehicles, .while frontal air bags are to be offered as standard equipment on the Pioneer.
