Truck

Freightliner M2 dump truck

A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport freight, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construction, with a cabin that is independent of the payload portion of the vehicle. Smaller varieties may be mechanically similar to some automobiles. Commercial trucks can be very large and powerful and may be configured to be mounted with specialized equipment, such as in the case of refuse trucks, fire trucks, concrete mixers, and suction excavators. In American English, a commercial vehicle without a trailer or other articulation is formally a "straight truck" while one designed specifically to pull a trailer is not a truck but a "tractor".[1]

The majority of trucks currently in use are still powered by diesel engines, although small- to medium-size trucks with gasoline engines exist in the US, Canada, and Mexico. The market-share of electrically powered trucks is growing rapidly, expected to reach 7% globally by 2027, and electric motive force already predominates among both the largest and smallest trucks.[2] In the European Union, vehicles with a gross combination mass of up to 3.5 t (3.4 long tons; 3.9 short tons) are known as light commercial vehicles, and those over as large goods vehicles.

  1. ^ "Glossary" (PDF). trucking.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 November 2019. Retrieved 12 September 2019.
  2. ^ Gies, Erica (18 December 2017). "Electric Trucks Begin Reporting for Duty, Quietly and Without All the Fumes". Inside Climate News. Archived from the original on 13 June 2021. Retrieved 13 June 2021. Replacing fleets of medium- and heavy-duty trucks can help cut greenhouse gas emissions and make cities quieter and cleaner. Because trucks need so much hauling power, they have eluded electrification until recently; a battery that could pull significant weight would itself be too hefty and too expensive. But now, improvements in battery technology are paying off, bringing down both size and cost. The number of hybrid-electric and electric trucks is set to grow almost 25 percent annually, from 1 percent of the market in 2017 to 7 percent in 2027, a jump from about 40,000 electric trucks worldwide this year to 371,000.