For the municipal market, the flexibility of the SD product line can accommodate a wide range of specialized applications from sewer vacs, to snow plows and refuse vehicles. And specific to this market, the Cummins ISLG natural gas engine will be offered in the 114SD SBA, providing municipal customers a factory built, environmentally friendly and low cost of operation vehicle that can be configured to tackle many of the jobs supporting the community.

Ease of Body Up-Fit

The mid-chassis packaging capabilities of the SD family are unsurpassed. A variety of fuel and DEF tank configurations combined with under-cab after treatment systems and battery boxes provide solutions for the most efficient body installations. 

“Great care was taken in the design of the SD chassis packaging in order to provide Truck Equipment Manufacturers (TEMs) with the optimum flexibility to specify clear frame rail and clean back of cab configurations,” said Rich Shearing, director of product strategy, Freightliner Trucks.

The SD family also incorporates SmartPlex^™, a TEM friendly multiplex electrical system that simplifies chassis to body electrical integration. SmartPlex provides a large number of switches and lamps that are configurable by the TEM with simple snap in legends, and additional computer power with more inputs and outputs for control. SmartPlex also gives TEMs the ability to access and upload programming from a library of parameters all from the convenience of their own shop via the Freightliner ServiceLink^® software.

Freightliner Organizational and Dealer Support

Freightliner is not only developing new products that are dedicated to the vocational market, but is mobilizing to support the unique needs of the vocational customer with dedicated personnel, and vocationally driven processes and programs that serve the vocational truck buyer. The addition of a dedicated vocational technical support team will also assist end users and TEMs in vehicle specifications and application engineering to maximize chassis performance and ease of body installation. Freightliner will also be expanding its vocational sales organization to increase its market presence and segment coverage with dedicated vocational experts in the field, and recruiting efforts are currently underway.

“We know that vocational customers have operating requirements that are different from our on-highway fleet customers, and we have structured our organization and efforts to focus on those needs,” said Mark Lampert, senior vice president, sales and marketing, Daimler Trucks North America. “The addition of our new vocational ‘Work Smart’ tagline perfectly compliments the goal to keep our vocational customers on the job and working smarter – ultimately increasing their bottom line.”

The 114SD SFA begins production in the second quarter of 2011, with the 108SD and 114SD SBA beginning production by the end of 2011.