Volvo’s I-Torque Powertrain has secured the Jim Winsor Technical Achievement Award from North American Truck Writers – a committee that includes transportation and logistics reporters and editors from across Canada and the U.S.

The annual award spotlights available products or services that demonstrate innovation, technical excellence, wide applicability, and real benefits to commercial truck operators.

Volvo’s honored technology promises higher fuel economy by combining a turbo-compounded diesel, 13-speed automated manual transmission, low numerical (fast) axle ratio, and load sensing software for cruising at low engine revs. Meanwhile, real-time map-based data and GPS positions are used to manage speed and gear shifting while traveling over grades.

It’s available in several Volvo truck models.

The 2023 award was announced March 1 during the Technology & Maintenance Council’s Annual Meeting and Truck Exposition in Orlando.

“We’re very happy to receive this award,” said Volvo Powertrain product marketing manager Duane Tegels, when accepting the award. “The engineers worked hard on this. And we’re getting good feedback from the fleets. It’s a great fuel-efficiency tool.”

The I-Torque Powertrain was one of five finalists chosen from an initial list of 16 products nominated by the journalists, who then discussed choices and voted over a two-week period in February.

Award finalists

The other four nominees were:

·      Detroit Assurance 5.0 system – Electronic safety devices that help drivers keep a truck in its lane and under control to avoid and mitigate collisions;

·      Grote 4See Smart Trailer System — Hardware and software that brings together all the independent electric and electronic equipment into a common communication stream, without increasing the harness or hardware required on a trailer;

·      Phillips Connect Smart 7 nosebox (in three versions) — Advanced cellular gateways, GPS trackers, and sensor hubs that pinpoint and transmit trailer location, status, and critical conditions to the cloud; and;

·      PlusDrive autonomous truck retrofit system — Converts an existing truck into semi-autonomous operation using lidar, radar, cameras, and autonomous driving software.

“We truck writers have been giving this award every year since 1991, except in 2021 when the Covid pandemic interrupted life in general,” said Tom Berg, a freelancer who writes for Land Line and Construction Equipment magazines, and led the judging panel. “We feel privileged to cover the trucking industry, and aside from our reporting and writing, this is a way to honor the suppliers who continuously improve the equipment that truck operators use.”

The Technology Achievement Award is dedicated to James W. Winsor, a respected trucking journalist for 50 years and enthusiastic supporter of the Technology & Maintenance Council. He passed away in 2015. The honor has carried his name since 2016, and since 2019 the award has been sponsored by Susan Fall of LaunchIt Public Relations.

Aside from Berg, members of the Truck Writers committee were John Baxter, freelance technical writer, Baxter Techwrite; Jason Cannon, editor, Commercial Carrier Journal; Seth Clevenger, managing editor, features, Transport Topics; James Menzies, editor, Today’s Trucking and Trucknews.com; Jason Morgan, content director, Fleet Equipment; Jim Park, equipment editor, Heavy Duty Trucking; Jack Roberts, chief editor, Diesel Dogs Media; and John G. Smith, vice president-editorial, Newcom Media.