By Gabriel Pe
Prime Quest Solutions Inc., the official distributor of UD Trucks in the country, has officially launched its first mid-duty truck: the UD Croner.
“When we started to develop Croner we had one clear goal, no compromise; No compromise at all,” said Steve Hedouin, managing director, UD Trucks Philippines. “And we wanted to develop smart and modern medium-duty truck with ultimate dependability.”
“Named after the Greek god Chronus, Croner was designed to save time, your time, and as we all know saving time means saving money. Croner has been developed to help our customers optimized the use of time, to make every moment count,” Hedouin said.
UD developed the Croner as a hybrid of European technology and Japanese quality. UD tested the Croner in three different continents during its development before coming up with the final model.
The UD Croner has two different variants including the smaller LKE with 210 hp and 825Nm of torque, and a large PKE with 250hp and 950Nm of torque. Both variants can either be a 6-speed manual or 6-speed automatic.
The size of the Croner makes it versatile enough to be used in different industries like agriculture, construction, and even in sanitation.
Apart from the Croner, UD Trucks also launched their Telematics service which lets truck owners monitor their fleet through the computer or smartphones with the UD Telematics App. The system can also monitor the vehicles’ fuel economy and even engine problems.
Truck owners can also customize the telemetric depending on the needs of the business. They can set boundaries on their trucks with the system notifying them if the vehicle crosses the said boundary. They can also monitor the driving behavior of drivers with the system recording almost everything from harsh acceleration and brakes to whether or not the drivers are wearing seat belts. In the future, the company also plans to add a CCTV in the truck’s cabin.
UD’s telemetric system will be available for all vehicle variants.