The next generation of waste disposal

Launched to the South African market in October 2012, American truck manufacturer Autocar’s Xpeditor waste disposal and refuse collection vehicles range has been well received by the local market to date.

Its first African product, Xpeditor was designed at the company’s design centre and South African headquarters in Cape Town after identifying a gap in the local market, notes Autocar vice president for international business development, Ryan Billet.  

“We have employed more than 40 South African engineers in order to ensure that we are able to custom build the Xpeditor to handle unique local operating conditions, without compromising on the traditional strength and reliability of the range,” he says.

The range of “severe duty trucks” is powered by Cummins ISM diesel engines. Ryan states that this was an obvious choice due to the ISM’s history of reliable performance in Autocar’s vehicles in the United States.

“The Cummins ISM has one of the highest-power-to-weight ratios of any engine of comparable displacement,” says Janean Davies, Cummins SA Heavy Duty OEM relationship manager. “This, combined with an advanced fuel-injection system and the patented variable geometry turbo (VGT), results in superior performance over South Africa’s unique terrain and weather conditions.”

According to Ryan, the vast amount of “sticky dust” is a challenge unique to South Africa, and so the highest-quality air filtration systems were installed and the air intake moved up to the top of the vehicle, where the dust is less dense.

In order to cater to unique local demands, the Xpeditor range is available with vertical and horizontal exhaust positions; flexible component placement and sizing; medium-duty or heavy-duty Allison automatic transmissions; rear axle ratings from 10,4 to 32,7 tons and a variety of options to ensure that the vehicle is custom-suited to its application.

Further, as local waste collection makes use of up to six people at a time (while in the USA many of the operations are automated) the vehicles have unique configurations for each application and truck body to ensure that each truck has the correct weight distribution.

Davies points out that all Autocar Xpeditor trucks come standard with a two-year/402 338 km warranty from Cummins SA.

“A number of orders have already been placed, particularly in the Gauteng region, and currently we are in the process of working with municipalities and private contractors to develop purpose-built solutions based upon their unique needs to improve the performance of their fleets,” says Ryan.