Scania Australia managing director, Manfred Streit says there are even better performances to come in this country from the giant killing Swedish brand after posting another strong month of sales in February.
Speaking at a briefing to a select group of trade press journalists in Sydney this week, Streit said there was more to come from Scania as the brand registered 111 new trucks in February, including 108 heavy duty models, placing it fourth in the heavy sector and seventh overall, despite not having a light duty product and limited medium duty penetration.
That follows a strong 2023 which saw the brand sell 1383 trucks overall placing it fourth in heavy duty and seventh in the overall truck market.
“I think that was a tremendous effort for everyone,” Streit told T&B News.
“Given all the difficulties we had in the beginning of last year, when we had no vehicles coming in, and then it’s like the tomato sauce bottle, you know you’ve got the sauce there, and you squeeze and squeeze, and then it comes out in a rush,” Streit added with a smile.
“And so then, at least in the second half of the year we could deliver according to plan or even above plan, so that was really, really good for us,” he said.
Streit said that with the launch of the new Scania Super early last year that he believes the brand has set new standards for fuel consumption, which he says, its customers have really appreciated.
“This has helped us again, and so we see now, where we are at after two months of this year,” he added.
Streit says that Scania is the brand with the highest market share increase in the market at the moment.
“It’s just two months into the New Year, and I don’t want to say too much here, but we have high ambitions,” the Scania boss said.
“We know what we have, we have great product, we have a great team and now we need to work together in terms of materialising that to keep our customers happy and make the best out of this so that’s in a short where we are in the future,” he said.
Streit said there’s a lot of potential in the company’s product portfolio, and that while not every customer has tested the new product yet, the company needs to continue working with its customers on this.
“We see the Euro six obligation for new trucks in Australia from November onwards as a very important step, which should have been done five years ago,” said Streit said.
“We have the top product line up in the Euro six range and we see a lot more coming,” he added.
Streit said the company has also embarked and continues its electrification journey, and is currently placing test vehicles with customers to see how these vehicles can operate and how they performing in real world activity.
“We need to also further elaborate on this with our customer builders who are interested and that’s also a big part of this year and the years to follow,” Manfred said.
Along with Scania Australia director of truck sales, Ben Nye, Streit pointed to the difficulties in the roll out of electric trucks, particularly here in Australia, but also across the world.
“I believe European governments are more friendly to the electric truck sphere, but even there, there the electric truck market continues to grow but at a slower pace,” Streit said.
“Australia is about five years behind Europe in this and it would be nice to have more encouragement here from governments, particularly with charging infrastructure,” he said.
Ben Nye said that a lot of pressure is coming from responsible companies for validation of batteries, including the origin of battery components and materials and how they will be disposed of when the service life is complete.
“Big fleets are seeking certificates of origin for the batteries and understand that the journey to carbon neutrality is about more than just a battery electric driveline,” said Ben Nye.“
Battery sourcing, servicing and disposal is becoming a major issue for responsible fleet operators and so Scania is addressing this by establishing its own battery factory in Sweden and ensuring that the battery modules we use in our trucks are environmentally friendly end to end,” he added.
Scania, like other Traton brands, has put a lot of its zero emission eggs in the battery electric basket, generally sidestepping the hydrogen fuel cell route that its opponents from Volvo, Daimler, Paccar and Iveco have all embrace and endorsed as the best way to power heavy duty and long-distance trucks.
