The new Actros is a compelling proposition – first of all in daily operation with more and more European transport companies, and then also as the winner of numerous awards across the whole of Europe. Such awards underline the fact that the flagship of Mercedes-Benz Trucks continues to set standards for safety, efficiency and connectivity. The new Actros is the truck for the 2020s.
The most significant prize from a European perspective is the “International Truck of the Year 2020” award. “With the introduction of the new Actros, Mercedes-Benz has brought a highly sophisticated truck onto our roads which smooths the way to the automated driving of the future”, was the rationale for the award as explained by jury chairman Gianenrico Griffini. The committee, comprising specialist commercial vehicle journalists from 24 countries, cited Active Drive Assist as well as further innovations such as the enhanced cruise control and transmission intervention system Predictive Powertrain Control, the fully digital Human Machine Interface in the form of the Multimedia Cockpit and the state-of-the-art safety systems, including the improved emergency braking assistance system Active Brake Assist 5, among the reasons for the award. Throughout the history of the “Truck of the Year” award, Mercedes-Benz has not only been its most frequent recipient, but has also won the competition, the most important for the industry in Europe, with all previous versions of the Actros.
In 2019, the “Ferdinand Porsche Prize” of the Technical University of Vienna, a widely respected award presented to leading automotive developers, also acknowledged the innovative strength of the new Actros: Professor Dr Uwe Baake, Head of Product Engineering at Mercedes-Benz Trucks, and Dr Werner Lang, Managing Director of MEKRA Lang GmbH & Co. KG, were honoured jointly for their development of the MirrorCam in the new Actros, fitted here for the first time in a series-production truck.
While the “Truck of the Year” award reflects the views of journalists and the “Porsche Prize” those of engineers, the “Truck of the Year Austria – Driver’s Choice” award from the online magazine “1Truck.tv” is based on the opinion of truck drivers. Some 6000 votes went to the new Actros in this instance, setting it well ahead of its competitors. But that’s not all: the truck has also been the recipient of numerous further accolades in other countries. In Spain the vehicle was voted “Camión de Año en España 2019” by more than 100 journalists and truck experts. The Catalan industry federation Transcalit awarded the truck the prize for “Innovation en el Transporte 2019”. Specialist magazine “Fleet Transport” in Ireland, meanwhile, distinguished the new Actros with the “Truck Innovation Award 2020”. And the Italian commercial vehicle magazine “Vado e Torno” declared the new Actros the “Sustainable Truck of the Year 2020”. In the view of the magazine’s editors in Milan, the vehicle marks a “powerful turning point that will bring long-term change to the way trucks are perceived, as well as to the way transport tasks are undertaken in the future”.
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SOURCE: Daimler
