Mov ing Matt e r s
UD Trucks Runs-Out
its MCV Range
U
D Trucks Southern Africa has announced the
production run-out of its U41 MCV product line-up.
This range, which included the UD 35A, UD 40A UD
40LA freight carriers, evolved out of the Nissan Diesel Cabstar
35/40/40L series that was first introduced in 1996, these
being subsequently rebadged as UD35/40/40L to follow the
designation system that had been applied to heavier Nissan
Diesel products. Following the retirement of the “Nissan
Diesel” brand in 2010, a revised MCV series, utilising the Euro
2-compliant 6-cylinder TD42T engine, and differentiated by
the “A” suffix to the model designator, replaced the original
naturally-aspirated FD46-powered line-up.
More than 13 000 of these visually similar and highly
successful models were produced at the Nissan Diesel and
UD production facilities in Rosslyn, outside Pretoria, by the
time that the last unit, a UD40A, rolled off the production line
in October, 2014. This particular vehicle has subsequently
Currency Capers
general freight daily across five Australian states. Aurizon’s
ability to sell off aging motive power for further use, at unit
prices of around R1,8-million to R2,3-million per copy, is
testament to good operating and maintenance practice,
and is an example worth following by other large-scale
railway operators.
been donated to the Legends Rhino Orphanage in Limpopo, for
use as an animal ambulance. The impending discontinuation of
this series had been publically announced by UD management
earlier in the year, with the promised replacement product range
from within the Volvo Trucks worldwide family yet to materialise.
This will leave UD Trucks, and the Volvo Group, temporarily
without a contender in the MCV segment of the South African
truck market until that new product is launched. This situation
could lead to some short-term loss of market share, once the
built-up stock of U41 models is exhausted. Interestingly, at
the recent launch of the new C and K-Series heavyweights
in South Africa, Renault Trucks stated that it would not be
bringing its European-sourced MCV-equivalent model to the
local market. We have also recently read that UD Trucks in
Japan has announced that it is buying-in “light trucks” from
Mitsubishi Fuso, for onward sale with UD badging in the
Japanese domestic market. It seems highly unlikely that these
rebadged Canter-based models will be exported, being required
only to satisfy the needs of UD’s home market customers.
So, at time of writing, we are still not entirely sure where UD’s
new MCV-class product will come from! Watch this space for
further developments………
movements that took place after the end of October. As can be
seen, the traces for the US Dollar, Euro and Chinese Yuan have
followed broadly similar patterns, but those of the Brazilian
Real and Japanese Yen have taken radically different routes.
B
Percent Move
This situation is likely to have quite a significant
ack in August, 2013, we traced the varying
performances of important truck-sourcing foreign
impact on the comparative local prices of vehicles,
currencies
components
vis-a-vie the Rand.
Relative Movement of Important Truck Sourcing Currencies
and parts
This month we are
sourced
updating that review
with the accompanying
from these
chart, using December
important
31st, 2012 as our
manufacturing
starting point, when
each exchange rate was
world areas.
based at 100. The data
has quarterly intervals,
but we have also
included the daily rate
on November 5th, 2014,
as the final reading,
because of some quite
startling currency
| Wheels in Action
65
december 2014 / January 2015
moving matters
Aurizon is Australia’s largest rail freight operator, and is
effectively the privatised successor to the Queensland
Government’s former railway operations. Privatisation
took place in 2010, and the Aurizon brand was adopted in
December, 2012. The company moves more than 700 000
tons of coal, iron ore, other minerals, agricultural products and