Western Star Targets 5% Market Share; Seeks Efficiency Without ‘Jellybean’ Look
This story appears in the Sept. 22 print edition of Transport Topics.
HENDERSON, Nev. — Executives at Western Star Trucks want to increase their market share to 5% of the U.S. and Canadian Class 8 market, and think there are enough haters of “jellybeans” among truck operators that they can pull it off.
The niche line from Daimler Trucks North America is using its new 5700XE, unveiled Sept. 11 at an event here, to supply aerodynamic highway tractors to small-fleet owners who want a truck that is efficient yet looks like a stunning brute.
“‘Don’t make it a jellybean. I’m not going to drive a Ford Taurus,’ we were told,” said senior designer Don Vena, summarizing the challenge put before him by customers.
Vehicle designers have improved truck aerodynamics significantly in recent years by turning boxes into curves, but critics opposed to the changes have sneered and derided the new vehicles as jellybeans.
Company executives attending the roll out spoke about the 5700.
General Manager Michael Jackson described his trucks as “a distinct, premium solution for the most demanding conditions.” He rejected the assertion that he is making Class 8 Bentleys or handsome machines that are inefficient for hauling freight.
“We have to be competitively priced with others in this segment,” he said, adding that operators will make money on the 5700’s total cost of ownership over time.
Jackson called the company’s sales plan the “Drive to Five,” or a 5% market share. Last year, the company had a 2.6% heavy-duty share, in the United States and Canada, up from 1.5% in 2009, the depth of the recession.
The executives emphasized they don’t want to divert business from Freightliner, the big brother within DTNA, which has 35.6% of the U.S. heavy truck market this year. Freightliner’s Cascadia Evolution is the high-mileage aero truck aimed at big fleets.
Western Star marketing director Ann Demitruk said she sees her main competitors as the Kenworth Truck and Peterbilt Motors brands of Paccar Inc. She said the 5700 sales campaign is aimed at small and medium-size fleets that treasure “unique styling.”
To the extent large fleets do buy the odd 5700, they will do so, she said, as “reward trucks” to retain valued veteran drivers.
Vena said he started drawing a version of the 5700 in 2007 and came back to it seriously in 2012 after Western Star launched the model 4700 vocational truck. The company’s legacy model 4900 is often used on the highway, but the 5700 got 14.6% better fuel economy than a 4900 in testing due to basic design improvements, the in-house Detroit DT12 automated manual transmission and an integrated powertrain.
If the fuel economy is nutritious spinach, it gets washed down with lots of chrome, or “bright works,” and a bumper that features “fangs” on the sides, which actually contribute to better air flow, Vena said.
Canada is an important part of Western Star’s sales. The company was founded in British Columbia in 1967 to work in logging and mining applications, so the brand is better known and bought more heavily there, Jackson said.
Demitruk said the two newer models, the 4700 and the 5700, were designed to add broader appeal to the U.S. market. She said the older 4800 and 4900 models do well in limited niches, but now the company is looking for “broadened activity.”
Western Star did not benefit from the early recovery in truck sales in 2010 and 2011 as those years were led by large fleets and leasing companies, which are not Jackson’s market.
With more small and medium fleets returning to the market, Jackson said he thinks sales will improve this year over last year’s level, which was Western Star’s best year since 2006.
