Volvo Truck India Hosts Seventh Edition of Fuelwatch Challenge
Published On Jun 21, 2016
In order to make truck driver vigilant about fuel economy and help them save more on the trips, Volvo Trucks India recently organized a pan India event named as Volvo Fuelwatch Challenge. It was the seventh edition of event and was held at Umred, near Nagpur. A total of 30 drivers drove the Volvo FMX 440 8x4 tipper truck on the racing truck spanning four kilometers and Anil Kumare Reddy from S V Engineering Constructions, Telangana emerged as the winner. He will be representing India in the Asia-Pacific finals, which is to be held in Gothenburg, Sweden in the month of September.
The event started at regional level and out of 230 drivers, only 30 got the chance to feature into the finale. The drivers had to cover the track distance twice with minimum fuel—once with no load and once with 30 tonne load. They also had to do these two rounds with Volvo FMX 440 8x4’s two variants, one with 14-speed manual transmission and the other one with 12-speed I-Shift automatic transmission. The fuel consumption was measured by built-in telematics system named Dynafleet and average mileage of 4 laps was considered as parameter to decide the winner. The truck generates heavy power of 433 bhp between 1,400 - 1,800 rpm and monstrous torque of 2,200 Nm between 1,050 - 1,400 rpm.
The winner, Anil Kumare Reddy, has used 2.4 percent less fuel then the runner up and a stunning 37 percent less than the last standee. These numbers easily give a glimpse of how fuel consumption can be curbed in an effective way and how important fuel economy is for fleet owners. According to a market study, fuel accounts for almost 50 percent of the trip cost and a transporter owning 100 trucks can save around INR 2-2.5 crore if his drivers manage to save only 10 percent fuel per trip.
Commenting on the occasion, Mr. Rama Rao AS, Executive Vice President, VECV, said, “Customers highly appreciate this initiative from Volvo Trucks. This is the seventh consecutive year that Volvo Trucks is conducting this event. Customers understand that if the drivers drive well, they tend to be more profitable. Therefore, we see a high level of involvement, participation and encouragement from our customers. Our driver training centre in Bangalore continuously trains drivers both in Bangalore and at customers’ mine sites. The centre point of driver training is fuel efficiency.”
He further added, “We have, till date, trained around 50,000 truck drivers. Since our inaugural event in 2009, hundreds of driver participants of the Fuelwatch Challenge have become ambassadors of the Fuelwatch community, sharing the skills and technical knowledge that they have picked up at the event to catalyse our goal of a fuel-efficient industry. Together with them, we look forward to championing the Fuelwatch mission for the industry and the society.”
See Also:
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