Volvo Trucks’ Most Fuel Efficient Driver is a global competition that attracts over 10 000 entries from across 40 countries. The competition, which aims to identify the world’s most fuel-efficient truck driver, culminates in September at a grand finale to be held in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Locally, 10 drivers took part in the South African finals, which followed tough regional rounds. Each of the finalists’ fuel-efficiency skills were assessed over a challenging, 34,8km route on public roads in the Maropeng district on the Highveld, with evaluation concentrated on four key areas – the time taken to complete the course, adherence to traffic rules, anticipation of challenges and the amount of fuel used.
“Driving fuel efficiently is not only good for business – it’s beneficial for the environment, too,” said Malcolm Gush, sales director for Volvo Trucks South Africa. He added that the competition formed part of the brand’s Every Drop Counts philosophy, which encouraged drivers to save as much fuel as possible.
“For a transporter or fleet manager, 10% of a vehicle’s fuel consumption is controlled by how the driver performs. This has a huge impact on operating costs, where 40% of the total cost of a fleet is attributed to fuel,” said Gush.
Winner of the South African final was Dharmendra Arejune of Mersey Trading, who won a shopping voucher worth R5 000 and a trip to Sweden to represent the country at the world leg in Gothenburg. Second was Edward Bierman of Franco Bulk Transport, who won a shopping voucher worth R3 000, with Thokozane Nene of Normandien Farms receiving a shopping voucher worth R2 000 for his third placed finish.
Hino scoops top awards
Hino South Africa, driven by its global Total Support programme, recently achieved top awards in two competitive local surveys.
The brand retained its No 1 position in the combined Scott Byers Competitive Customer Satisfaction Monitor for the sixth successive quarter. It also placed top in the Parts and Service categories and third in the Sales category for the second quarter of 2016, all of its scores topping 95% — well above the survey average.
Also, Hino won a Gold Award in the annual National Automobile Dealer Association (NADA) dealer satisfaction survey. Truck makers or importers have to receive a rating of 75% or higher from their dealers to qualify for the Gold Award – and this year only four brands out of the 10 that were evaluated achieved top ratings.
Hino scored 83,6%, which was a 1,8% improvement on its figure for 2015. The industry average was 74,2%, the highest yet. This year marked the second time that Hino had achieved Gold Award status in this prestigious survey.
“We are delighted with the positive progress made in customer satisfaction ratings by Hino in recent years and are very pleased and proud to have fared so well in both the Scott Byers Competitive Satisfaction Monitor and the NADA DSI survey,” said Ernie Trautmann, Vice President of Hino SA.
He said the achievements underlined the role Hino’s global Total Support programme had played in building and maintaining strong relationships and mutual trust between Hino Japan, Hino SA and the dealer network to ensure they all partnered with their customers.
“Effective and ongoing communication with dealers and customers is a major key to the success of this programme,” Trautmann said.
