Walmart Debuts Supercube, Seeks Test Permit in Canada

This story appears in the Nov. 26 print edition of Transport Topics.

Walmart Canada Corp. is hoping to revolutionize freight transportation in Canada with a huge new cargo carrier.

Earlier this month, North America’s largest retailer debuted “supercube,” a 60-foot, 6-inch trailer, combined with a storage box behind the cab that Walmart Canada said offers a total of 40% more cargo space than a standard 53-footer.

The company now seeks a permit from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation to conduct a one-year trial of its supercube tractor-trailer.

But Walmart’s prototype isn’t finding much support in the trucking industry, and the Ontario Trucking Association said it opposes granting Walmart the required permit.

Walmart Canada is using a Freightliner Argosy glider kit model as the tractor for its supercube. Eventually, the retailer plans to have two Argosy tractors and four of the giant trailers.

Argosy cabover tractors are produced at the truck maker’s Cleveland, N.C., factory and are sold only abroad, said Amy Sills, a spokesman for Freightliner’s parent company, Daimler Trucks North America.

“We are using a 2012 glider kit with a 2002 engine,” Jim McKay, Walmart Canada’s director of transportation, said on Nov. 20. The tractor has a 500-horsepower, 12.7-liter engine, he said.

The first tractor has a Detroit Diesel engine, and the second will have a natural-gas engine, said John Kennedy, who owns truck dealership Island Leasing Inc. and Bay Trucks, of Mississauga, Ontario, which configured the first tractor.

“We looked at getting an Argosy from Europe, but you can’t bring those into Canada,” he told Transport Topics on Nov. 19.

McKay said Walmart Canada has considered a natural-gas engine for the second tractor but wants to concentrate on completing the pilot program for the first truck.

The retailer chose a cabover instead of a conventional tractor to meet Ontario’s maximum tractor-trailer length limit of 69 feet, said Bob Nichols, a spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.

Nichols said neither the permit nor the pilot program has been officially approved by his province.

The supercube trailers are being made by Innovative Trailer Design Industries Inc., also of Mississauga.

The tractor-supercube trailer has an elongated wheelbase, which allows ITD to install a dromedary box between the cab and the fifth wheel, adding cargo space, said Jimmy Zborowsky, ITD’s vice president.

“What you actually have is a 60-foot, 6-inch trailer and a drome box, which gives you approximately 68 feet of cargo length space,” he told TT.

Zborowsky said two trailers already have been built, and two more are on order.

Walmart Canada spokeswoman Rosalyn Carneiro said via e-mail that her company hopes to have supercubes on Ontario roads in a few weeks. The permit would be valid only in Ontario.

The United States has neither a federal maximum length on tractor-trailer combinations nor a maximum trailer length. Instead, states apply their own standards, said Darrin Roth, director of highway operations at American Trucking Associations.

All states generally allow 53-foot trailers, but 11 states do allow longer ones, Roth said.

Roman Slugocki, vice president of Meyers Transportation Services, a less-than-truckload and truckload hauler in Mississauga, said Canadian drivers overwhelmingly prefer conventional tractors to cabovers for the same reason that their U.S. counterparts do — smoother ride and more interior room.

None of the truck makers that serve North America offers a cabover heavy-duty model, although some medium-duty models are for sale.

Although Walmart Canada is making plans for the test, OTA said it is opposed to any entity controlling a vehicle permit except a principal that would control the actual vehicle.

OTA said it believes the longer trailers will be pulled by motor carriers working for but not owned by Walmart Canada.

“The proposal to allow the longer trailers is not something the trucking industry has been advocating for or promoting,” OTA said in a statement. “Therefore, the proposal does not enjoy the support of the trucking industry that previous changes to Ontario’s allowable truck configurations did.”

Carneiro did not directly address whether Walmart would own the trucks. “Our goal with the truck is to deliver more products to stores, using fewer trucks, thereby reducing our impact on the environment,” she said.

“Walmart Canada wants this pilot program to be a success. We are working with the MOT to ensure this success and view the OTA as an important and valued partner in this process,” Carneiro said.

When asked if the retailer would seek to bring supercube trucks to the United States, Carneiro replied: “We’ll get the pilot program done and see where we go from there.”

But Roth said the Walmart Canada supercube would be illegal in all states.