American trucks are so much better than European trucks

These are the size specs for European Trucks

The maximum articulated truck and trailer length is 16.5 metres (54 feet)
Road trains are allowed up to 18.75 metres. (61'6")
The maximum width for all is 2.55 metres. (8'5")

I have seen a few US Trucks over here (UK) they generally run with shorter trailers to keep within the Length limit.

 

Actually that is a lot of marketing garbage as anybody on here could tell you... people with cascadias getting 6 and w9s getting 6... Thats some major difference in fuel economy there...

Aero dynamics is not intuitive. Frontal area is responsible for one of your biggest aero losses is #### well the same regardless of what truck you drive. Take the air cleaners and stacks off the side of a w9 or 379 and you've got almost as aero dynamic truck as the "aero" trucks.

PACCAR also owns DAF which gets it's fair share of awards for economy and quality.

It's not just about looking cool, its about looking cool and making money.

 

Actually, the undercarriage is where most aerodynamic losses occur. That is why the Scion xB was one of the most aerodynamic cars despite being shaped like Velveeta. The undercarriage was smoothed.

 

syncronizers insted of sliding clutches,one counter shaft,helical cut gears,spliter gears in the main box like in spicers proshift, range section is an planetar type reductor, many transmission are fited with hydraulic retarders(brake savers as on cat 3408 but fited on the output shaft ,braking power around 800-900hp)

 

a few trucks used the fuller unsynchronized transmission until the mid-late 80's.
Now most if not all trucks have zf manual or semiautomatic or now even automatic transmission.
zf has a 6,8 and 16 gears manual transmission. At the moment i use the 16 gear manual wich is basically a 8gear plus the halfgear. It has 4 gears than by pushing the gear stick to the right it has another 4 gears and by switching the halfgear switch each and every gear can be split. With modern truck 16 gears are way too much and we jump many gear, i usually do: 2-4-5-6l-6-7l-7-8l-8 if loaded, and keep in mind that my 18weelers has only 430hp so thats why i have to use all gears after 5th.
I never drove automatic or semi, all i knowh is that they have a 12 gears zf automatic gearbox that is now coming out without clutch.
We are not really into automatic gearboxes, most cars in europe are manual,the only way to get a car or truck licence is to drive manual and 100% of the driver knowh how to shift manual,here in italy many cars are not available in automatic and if they are you got to pay for the automatic gearbox something like 2000-3000 dollars more.

And yes we have a retarder fitted on the shaft,it uses high pressure oil ans we turn it on with a lever on the side of the steering weel, mine has 5 clicks the first is the jake brake and the other 4 the retarder.

 

You are right, it's called a retarder, it's a very powerful piece of kit, I can come down mont blanc @ 97,000lbs coming into France from Italy , it's a 22% decline and 26 kms long, with the retarder I only need to touch the brakes a couple of times for a couple of really bad bends otherwise I can let the truck go at motorway speed down the hill without any fear of losing control or ever using the brakes which are still nice and cold if I need them in an emergency. now days it's set alongside your cruise control, with an auto gearbox for instance you just select your speed on the cruise control, select the downhill speed control button and literally Ure on autopilot, the truck holds a steady speed up or down hill all you do is steer,

We also have disc brakes with EBS as standard , these can stop a fully loaded truck almost as quickly as a modern car, under emergency braking your are quiete literally hanging out of the seat belt,

We have retarders since the early nineties and disc brakes as standard since the mid nineties , I don't understand why they haven't been popular in the states, modern retarders are very light and disc brakes are lighter than drums and from a safety point of view I think they should be mandatory

 

at the same time retarder is about 70kg or more

you can save that weight on 2axles with discs and have lot safer truck

 

97,000 lbs, 22% grade, motorway speed, 26 kms long?. Hmmm, 97000lbs isn't exceptionally heavy but a 22% grade for 26km?? That's over 18,000 feet of elevation in 16 miles (over half the hight of Mt Everest). For comparison, the infamous "Grapevine" in California is 6%. I doubt that a loaded truck could climb a 22% grade without being pushed by a bull dozer.

 

i think both of you had wrong calculation

if you have 26km and 22% all of time

this would be 5720m of elevation 18766ft

probably only part of road is 22%

mt blanc is 4810m at highest point