10 little-known facts about trucks: It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand them, but you will be awesome if you do.
time2025/05/16
- Discover 10 fascinating truck facts: from the 80m-long French road train to the world's fastest jet-powered truck. Learn how Mercedes got its name, why Arctic vehicles stay unlocked, and why China's a top buyer of seatbelt buckles. The first truck appeared in 1896, and one had wiring over 1800m long. Fun fact: the first driver was a woman! Trucks are complex machines with high recycling value after retirement.
1. What made the best trucks in history awesome?
The best truck in the world is the French MILLAU, which is 80 meters long and consists of 42 trailers. One truck is loaded with the cargo of more than 40 trucks. This “train on the road” has been put into use in France.
2. How did most car manufacturers get their names?
Many car manufacturers are named after people, especially car inventors, such as Karl Benz, Daimler, and Ford, but the Mercedes in Mercedes-Benz is just the name of an Austrian businessman’s daughter.
3. What brand is the truck on the one-cent bill?
The Jiefang truck on the one-cent bill is actually a Soviet knockoff of the American Navistar K series. It entered China in the 1950s and became the Jiefang truck.
4. When driving in the Arctic, the car doors are not allowed to be locked.
Countries in the Arctic Circle have laws that require that car doors cannot be locked when parking. Why? Because there are ferocious polar bears there. If a group of people encounter a bear, getting into a nearby car can save their lives. There, not only cars don't lock their doors, but even the doors of buildings are not allowed to be locked.
5. The birth of the world's first truck
On October 1, 1896, 10 years after the birth of Daimler Automobile Company in the world, it brought the world's first truck to the world.
6. Where are the sales of truck safety buckles large?
The seat belt was invented by Volvo in Sweden, but the nemesis of the seat belt: the seat belt buckle was invented by the Chinese. The seat belt buckle is a small iron piece inserted into the seat belt slot to prevent the car from beeping when the seat belt is not fastened. Although it is illegal and unsafe, China is the country with the largest sales of seat belt buckles in the world.
7. The length of the circuit wiring in the truck is 1,800 meters
As a highly sophisticated mechanical and electronic product, the complexity of the internal structure of the truck is unimaginable to ordinary people. Can you imagine that the electronic wiring of a truck is nearly 1,800 meters long? What is the concept of 1,800 meters? A person normally walks 2-3 steps per second, each step is about 50 cm, and it is estimated to take about 35-40 minutes to walk!
8. The world's fastest jet-powered truck?
Powered by 3 jet engines, it can reach a maximum speed of 644 kilometers per hour. It is a truck that will not break down. It is called "Shock Wave", the world's fastest jet-powered truck.
9. The first driver was a woman?
In 1885, German mechanical engineer Karl Benz invented the world's first practical internal combustion engine car, but what troubled him was that he could not test drive it. His wife Berta Benz completely ignored the obstruction of the local government. Without Karl Benz's knowledge and without any driving training, she successfully drove a distance of 190 kilometers, becoming the world's first driver.
10. What are the waste products with high recycling rates?
After the service life of all precision machinery products, their parts prices are often much higher than the products themselves. This is true for airplanes and trucks. Trucks are treasures from head to toe. After being scrapped, they will be completely disassembled according to their structure. Aluminum parts will be processed and recycled, thermoplastic parts can be recycled and processed into recycled plastics, and parts of power/transmission units will flow to the second-hand parts market, with a very high recycling rate.