How things change
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The Hannover Show featured more alternative-fuel vehicles than ever before. Renault showed a 13-tonne electric Midlum that’s about to undergo trials with Nestlé – but, with a 3-tonne payload, one can only assume it’s going to be used for delivering bars of Aero! The number of truck makers offering hybrids is growing too. As prices begin to fall, so their popularity will increase.
Only a handful of UK operators are experimenting with alternative fuels, but 107 years ago (when the first issue of CM was published) it was a similar story with self-propelled vehicles. While the opening lines of that first issue talked about “the increasing use of commercial motors”, in reality the combustion engine was still an oddity.
The first motor vehicles had appeared only eight years earlier, and horses were still the norm. Of the 18,340 vehicles on the road, only 3,158 were used for commercial purposes (included buses and Hackney carriages). But while CM staff knew the industry was on the edge of a revolution, they were aware that horses
wouldn’t become extinct – after all, “we must not forget the nervous ladies who will never abandon their cherished broughams, and others whose pony carts are equally dear to them”. Well it’s a similar story today with diesel – at least for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately what did become extinct was British-owned truck manufacturers. Check out the final paragraph on page 20 of the first issue – it’s enough to bring a tear to your eye!
Will Shiers