Hino has revealed a major rationalisation of its Australian range with a reduction in the number of variants it offers to the market, particularly with the phase out of most of its manual models.
The Toyota controlled truck brand says it is plotting a course towards ‘a two pedal’ future across. The range with a diminishing demand for three pedal traditional manual models.
Hino Australia’s product strategy manager, Daniel Petrovski told a briefing of Australian truck journalists this week that the decision to rationalise the range and up the percentage of two pedal trucks has been made based on market data
Petrovski told the gathered media that this year in light duty sales Hino will see about 95 per cent of its 300 Series equipped with two pedal drive trains and that this was a little bit less than it could be because of a short supply of automatic.
“I suppose for us, it has been a supply issue over the past few years and we needed every truck we could get and of course, we have sold manuals because brought anything we could get for inventory, but all those customers are asking for the two pedal now,” Petrovski said.
As Petrovski pointed out he believes that manuals will be down to around five per cent in the Hino range by the time the brand switches to Euro 6 beyond November next year.
He said there will be more sequential shifts in new Hino models that will enhance the automatic driving experience, particularly in the light duty range where a large proportion of the trucks are aimed at drivers who only have car licences.
“Our range has just been way too complicated in terms of what we are offering to the customer,” said Petrovski.
As part of the rationalisation Hino will reduce the number of variants in its 300 range from 46 down to 25 models, while its standard cab 500 Series range will shrink from 47 models down to 26, and with the 500 all will be two pedal automatics. With the wide body 500 series models the range will reduce from 53 models down to 19, with the the eight litre diesel being the lynchpin of the range. While the wide body 500 was offered with the slightly larger nine-litre Hino six cylinder diesel in some models including the FM, that engine will now be only available in the 700 Series. Petrovski says this will be covered by the 700 Series FS
The exception to the model reduction diet is the flagship 700 Series, which will expand from 18 models currently to include 29 variants in future.
The news around the 700 Series also revolves around a new ‘in-house’ 12 speed AMT transmission.
The bottom line for the rationalised range is that it will reduce from 164 variants across all series in the 2023 line up, which contained 67 manual models and 98 autos or AMTs, to a total line up of 99 models in the company’s Euro 6 range, all of which will be two pedal variants.
Petrovski said that 60 per cent of light duty Hinos are car licence compliant, which is why it will concentrate on car licence models in its light duty offering.
“Car licence is where we’re concentrating on having different variations of wheel bases and cabs and just putting that manual transmission into the mix more than halves our offering in terms of the fact that the more offerings we have, the more stock we need to bring in,” he said.
“If we can narrow the number of models and concentrate on those key ones that the customers really want, then we can carry more stock of those models and get better turnover and hopefully decrease delivery times, as well as combining things we’re doing with fully built up ready to work trucks that will be better for us, better for our dealers and better for the customers,” Petrovski said.
“So concentrating on the car licence the line up would be fully auto and hybrid electric, there will be no manual transmissions from Euro 6 onwards,
He went on to say that wheelbase and cab variation will be the the focus, and that all the applications are suitable, while there will also be a bit of a rationalisation on Hino’s four litre and five litre diesels, with the four litre being the dominant powerplant in that car licence category.
“However customers in the 6.5 tonne plus GVM class, 6.5, seven and eight tonne class, want more power than they need more power,” he said.
“They’re often full GVM, they’ll be towing and the five litre is the most powerful light duty truck on the market, that will be, of course featurea six speed automatic transmission and will continue with a the Euro 6 version,” Petrovski said.
“That’s great news for our customers, and we’ve dropped a couple of low volume drive lines, like an extra-long 4.4 metre long car licence model and we sell maybe five to six of those a year,” he said.
“For those trucks, we can do a wheelbase adjustment and not have to worry about carrying those five or six trucks which by extension makes things much easier.”
Petrovski reckons the rationalisation will enable the brand to concentrate on the core models they are bringing in with now with 25 variants of the of the 300 Series instead of 46 models and to bring stocking of the high moving models.
“A great example of this a wide cab, medium wheel base, we sell about 1000 of those a year, yet we had these other models in the manual on various wheel basis, which would be selling a half dozen a year, it just confuses the whole balance of what you bring in,” Petrovski emphasised.
The product strategy boss admitted 300 series was the most difficult one to rationalise and that 500 series was pretty easy by comparison.
“That 500 series with the Hino AO5 five litre engine and the Allison automatic transmission is a great combination and we’ve got a few tweaks to the automatic transmission that will come with the update to OVD two, which then is our ADR 80/04 version of this truck,
Petrovski said the four cylinder in that 500 standard cab, had huge torque spikes, and that being such a powerful truck with only a four cylinder engine, the Allison transmission’s, normal torque converter, couldn’t handle the torque spikes, so they’ve had to move to a special low rate torque dampener to handle the torque spikes of that engine.
That change will come with Hino’s ADR 80/04 Euro 6 models that keeps us lock up and that will also deliver lock up on first gear and allow it to allows us to run PTOs right down to idle.
“So they’re things that we couldn’t do with today’s version, where manuals had to be retained for those models, and also FC tippers, which we didn’t have available in an automatic in the past,” Petrovski explained.
In terms of the 700 Series Petrovski explained the increase in the line up as being a way of moving customers from the high end 500 series models into some new 700 variants.
“Working on with them over the past four months is how do we move customers from 500 series to 700 Series and in reality, this should have happened when we introduced 700 series, but we had the ability to sell both trucks,” he said.
“What is coming in our new 700 Series line up is more nine litres, we’re going to have additional four by two, six by four and eight by four models in a variety of wheelbases, with the nine litre, 360hp and 1569 Nm engine with a new in house designed Hino 12-speed, AMT,” he explained.
“They’ll be both leaf and airbag suspension, a variety of wheelbases, from tippers right out to long wheelbase, air suspended, 14 pallet type trucks.
“That that’ll mean we have nine litre, 320 horsepower with Allison, and for those nine litre applications that are towing at times, or guys running in the country that need a bit more power, then the 360 with the new 12-speed AMT will be the shot,” he said.
Petrovski says the new 12 speed AMT has been running in the Japanese domestic market since 2019 and was first fitted to the Hino 700 Series Hybrid and has been running in that market for a number of years.
Petriovski says there will also be some 13 litre models, with 450 hp and 2057 Nm also mated with the12-speed with both leaf and airbag suspension models, which he says will give it a single trailer, council tipper and dog compatible truck, that he believes will be a nice competitive truck, with no retarder, the 12-speed replacing the 16 speed.
“It will be a lighter truck for those operations and particularly single trailer work,” he said.
Petrovski says the rationalisation make Hino’s whole sales and marketing supply chain revenue models look to balance in terms of what they bring in, but it also gives it an opportunity to expand sales volumes by targeting those markets and segments where they’re selling.
“ In terms of volume aspiration this move doesn’t hurt us,” Petrovski concluded.
