USA – Mack Trucks Inc, a subsidiary of the Volvo Group based in Greensboro, North Carolina, has announced that it is now installing its in-house predictive cruise control system as standard in its heavy-duty ‘Anthem’ and ‘Pinnacle’ ranges for long-distance haulage. 

New vehicles from these product lines will now come with ‘Mack Predictive Cruise Control with Econo-Roll’, a system which utilises the trucks’ ‘mDRIVE’ automated manual transmission and GPS in combination to optimise vehicle speed and torque. The technology will memorise set routes and will automatically shift to the optimal gear for achieving greater efficiency when cruise control is enabled, taking into account factors such as speed, engine load, weight and the gradient of the road ahead. The Econo-Roll feature will automatically and temporarily disengage the driveline before a descent, allowing the truck to roll and thus save fuel. Up to 4,500 routes can be stored on the system, which means a constant GPS connection is not required for it to work. Mack Trucks claims its driver assistance technology can improve fuel efficiency by up to 1%.