Anton Falck was recently appointed Vice President of Hino South Africa, taking over from Ernie Trautmann who has retired. It also marks the return of Hino to the extra-heavy segment of the local truck market.
Anton was originally a student of Consumer Behaviour and Marketing, but since joining Toyota SA Motors in 1987, he has done duty in several divisions of the company. His experience ranges from area management, marketing communications and vehicle sales to dealer representation, overseeing Automark, TSAM’s used vehicle franchise and more recently running the Toyota Academy of Learning.
“We are pleased to have successfully launched the highly anticipated new Hino 700 last month. This vehicle sets a new standard for its class in the industry, boasting exceptional performance and outstanding safety features at a highly competitive price.
“We are aggressively promoting the Hino 700 and anticipate that over the next few years, the Hino 700 will help us establish a strong presence in the extra-heavy segment, where we have not played a significant role previously,” Anton remarks.
The Hino SA Vice President said the company’s initial commercial market forecast for 2023 was around 31 500 units. However, after five months of sales, it has become evident that the market is larger than anticipated, with an impressive growth rate of 11.6% over 2022. Taking this into account, Hino SA expects the total commercial vehicle market to range between 33 500 and 35 000 units in 2023.
“The exact figure will depend on market and consumer response to the increased interest rates, the declining exchange rate and various other challenges that we are currently facing as South Africans. Despite the challenges, the deteriorating state of other forms of transport, such as the railways, suggests that demand for trucks will be strong for the next few years.
“The most significant growth has been observed in the EHCV (Extra Heavy Commercial Vehicle) segment, with a staggering 21.8% increase compared to 2022. This indicates a substantial demand for the large-scale transport of goods in South Africa. On the other hand, the MCV (Medium Commercial Vehicle) and HCV (Heavy Commercial Vehicle) segments have remained relatively stable.
“Hino sales have also performed satisfactorily year-to-date, with a growth rate of 5.8% compared to 2022. That is, of course, behind the market growth, but mainly due to us having had a product gap in the extra-heavy segment,” commented Falck.
Hino Motors, Toyota, Mitsubishi Fuso and Daimler recently signed a memorandum of understanding to engage in a future collaboration on equal terms, with Toyota and Daimler as shareholders. The objective of the four parties is to accelerate product development in respect of CASE, which stands for Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Electric trucks.
Hino SA is also involved in another exciting development and that is pilot, the on-the-road testing of the Hino 300 diesel-electric hybrid truck to assess its suitability and viability for the local market.
Anton explains that Hino, which has been on South African roads for more than 50 years, has 65 dealers – 21 exclusive truck dealers and 44 dual car and truck outlets. Hino was once again No 1 overall in the 2023 Quarter 1 DataTrack survey, as well as being No 1 in Sales and Service.
More Hino news is that the completion of the Hino 700-Series project was recently celebrated with a line-off ceremony at Hino South Africa’s production facility in Prospecton Durban.
The plant now assembles four Hino models and 35 derivatives on a semi-knocked down basis. There is one 200-Series, which is in the light commercial vehicle segment (under 3 500 kg GVM), 13 300-Series medium trucks, including crew cab models, five 500-Series, 12 Wide Body Hino 500-Series and now four 700-Series derivatives.
Mitsubishi Motors has revived the Pajero name with the launch of the fifth generation Pajero Cross Country. The new model does not simply replace the previous Pajero that disappeared from the market in 2021. Its relationship with the Pajero Sport is equally important, particularly for markets such as South Africa.
Range Rover, long regarded as the original luxury SUV, has introduced its first electric model. The vehicle is built at the Solihull plant in the UK, where Range Rover production has taken place since 1970.
Audi South Africa has introduced the new Q5 range, comprising the third-generation Q5 SUV, second-generation Q5 Sportback, and the performance-focused SQ5 SUV and SQ5 Sportback. The range is built on Audi's Premium Platform Combustion and brings a new generation of petrol and diesel engines to the nameplate.
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