UD Trucks, held its annual press briefing at the Cradle Hotel in Muldersdrift this morning, where Filip Van den Heede, Managing Director of UD Truck South Africa, unpacked some of the developments in the company and trading environment.
Technology Driving Massive Changes
Filip believes that 2025 is an important year for the group and comments that there is much change, with a lot of new technology that only came into the picture in the last two years. Particularly with regards AI and the development towards autonomous, self – driving vehicles, that UD Japan has been investing deeply in over the past few years.
“If you need to look forward, what will really make big milestone changes in the world that will impact us, … the first one that I think is going to be a massive change is AI and how AI lands into our day-to-day practical environments, ….It will have massive changes on the way we work,” he comments.
UD Trucks Japan are taking into account a rapidly aging society in Japan and other areas worldwide and see that Autonomous driving is definitely going to be a big game changer. There is a rapidly aging and therefore decreasing number of truck drivers and even individual mobility is going to have to be answered by technology developments.
Big Challenges facing the Industry Currently
“We had a big energy crisis that seemingly is going in the right direction and we are getting out of that energy crisis, but we also have still a logistics crisis where we are not completely out of it, says Filip. “I have been working with UD for the last say four or five years in South Africa, but actually due to logistics issues, we’ve never had so many times that the factories have been standing still because of the whole logistic train that somewhere halts and creates say disruption”, Van den Heede reflected. “Which means that we are, if I give you an insight, that we are instead of shortening lead times from Asia, from Japan, back to South Africa, we actually have gone backwards”.
“Due to political, economic situations with the problems in the Middle East, boats that are not really that regular passing through the Suez Canal, whether they’re going around, potentially good for South African economy from a shipping point of view, but from a lead time point of view, in a way we have really gone backwards compared to pre-COVID time”, he says
“You have the shipping landscape, the shipping crisis that has created a lot of push towards us to manage these unpredictable factors to have to be more agile in this rapid changing environment” states Van den Heede.
Emission Policy Delays Creating Concerns
There is also concern from the automotive manufacturer around the delays in the implementation of the Euro-5 emission ratings for South Africa. Europe and other parts of the world are already adopting Euro-6 standards while South Africa is still using Euro-2 standards that were adopted way back in the late 1990’s.
“As long as there are pieces of the puzzle missing, we can’t complete the puzzle”, says Filip.
He mentions that there is now talk of adoption of the new regulations only in July of 2027.
“If I think from a government point of view, it’s not always clear why the delay would happen. In the last NAMSA event in October, it was very clear that even the petrochemical industry is looking forward to it, Filip says.
“So if all big stakeholders are ready, you could ask yourself, why did it have to be delayed”? Van den Heede asks.
Data and the Future of Trucking
Filip did however paint a picture of South Africa being one of the most advanced countries with regards to the whole ecosystem around the telematics environment of the vehicles. The big move for UD Trucks is in the space of giving more insights into what our vehicles are doing and how they can be improved and improving performance and longevity for their customers.
UD anticipates that its focus on “total package of ownership”, including purchase, running and maintenance costs, puts them a distinct advantage to the rest of the market. UD Trucks strategy is clearly not just about price but quality and reliability.
Maximizing uptime and profitability remains at the core of UDTSA’s offering, according to the management team. This the claim, is ensuring customers avoid unexpected interruptions and costly repairs.
Their “up-time” solutions allow vehicles to spend more time on the road driving business success and less time in the workshop.
The uptime services include among others: UD Trust Standard or Ultimate Service Agreements (offering predictable maintenance costs for up to five years with options for service-only).
With these comprehensive plans, UDTSA has continued its strong trajectory of growth, with penetration rates reaching new heights. In 2023 the brand indicated an increase of over 40%, whilst in 2024, the team took it a notch higher with a further realization of 50% Year to date (YTD).
“The brand stands for up-time” stresses Van den Heede “and we aim to get better at that” he concluded.
