Under the background of carbon neutrality, the green transformation of the real economy, as a “big carbon emitter”, the commercial vehicle industry is the first to bear the brunt and officially enter the “lightweight era”. Lightweighting of vehicles has become a necessary path for the sustainable development of the commercial vehicle industry, especially for semi-trailer tractors, ensuring the lightweight of vehicles is of great significance.
At present, lightweighting of vehicles has become the general trend of the current logistics and freight market. In today’s low freight rates and high costs, choosing a lightweight semi-trailer tractor has become a general trend. Especially for end users, lightweight body means that more goods can be pulled per trip, thereby increasing more income.
However, it is worth noting that lightweighting of vehicles is not the effort of one link, but the collaborative cooperation of the entire industry. While vehicle manufacturers are paying more and more attention to lightweighting of vehicles, the lightweighting of semi-trailers, which is the “half of the country” of heavy truck transportation, must also catch up.
“At present, the rapidly changing transportation market is a challenge that the semi-trailer industry must face.” Sun Fusen, member of the Trailer Sub-Standardization Committee of the National Automobile Standardization Committee and chairman of Changlong Automobile, said that in recent years, the domestic market has undergone earth-shaking changes, and the domestic transportation industry has begun to move from small and scattered to large-scale, large-scale and professional.
Semi-trailers are the main models in the domestic road transportation industry. With the characteristics of high transportation efficiency and low transportation cost, they play an important role in the logistics and transportation industry. As the relevant departments continue to tighten the control of overweight, long-distance semi-trailer transportation is increasingly tending to standard load transportation. Under the condition of a certain gross vehicle weight limit, the lighter the semi-trailer, the more weight space can be allocated to load goods. For car owners, they can reasonably earn higher freight within the standard load range. Therefore, lightweighting has become a trend that trailer manufacturers have been competing to develop in recent years.
With the change of policy environment, vehicles have undergone new changes, and trailers have also been subtly affected. Especially in the current situation of strict “overweight control”, users have focused their attention on vehicle lightweighting in order to pursue greater benefits. Not only do they require the tractor head to be as lightweight as possible, but the lightweighting of semi-trailers has become a trend and fashion.
According to reports, in order to meet the needs of users, trailer manufacturers try to reduce the weight of semi-trailers in different ways. For example, many trailer factories use lighter aluminum alloy materials to manufacture semi-trailers, or traditional steel semi-trailers use stronger steel, and further reduce the vehicle’s own weight by punching special-shaped holes on the beam.
