Chinese reefer enters US trailer market

A new refrigerated trailer, engineered and manufactured in China, was exhibited at the Mid-America Trucking Show in March. It is the prototype of a new line of reefers manufactured by CIMC, a company that says it is the largest manufacturer of refrigerated intermodal containers in the world.

China International Marine Container Co was founded in 1982 and quickly became the largest manufacturer of cargo containers. Based in Qingdao, Shandong, China, it has some 60,000 employees, of which 3,400 are engineers. Its world-wide operations are on every continent.

The 53-ft refrigerated trailer exhibited in Louisville was transported aboard a container ship to Long Beach, California, where it was fitted with landing gear, running gear, and Thermo King refrigeration unit. That will be the case when the first CIMC reefers for fleet sales are delivered in June.

By October 2009, CIMC plans to be shipping insulated sidewalls, roof, floor, doors and front end instead of the complete insulated box. Final assembly will be in the Vanguard National Trailer Corp plant in Monon, Indiana. Sales will be handled by CIMC master dealers, Direct Chassis LLC dealers, and Vanguard National Trailer dealers.

David Li, deputy general manager of CIMC Vehicles Group Co Ltd and president of CIMC USA Inc, says that Vanguard National Trailer is 100% owned by CIMC, and Direct Chassis is 60% owned by CIMC. Direct Trailer LP sells flatbed and drop-deck trailers produced by Direct Chassis using components supplied by CIMC.

Charlie Mudd, president of Vanguard National Trailer Corp, says his company has built over 26,000 dry freight van trailers since its purchase by CIMC in 2003, and it now has a 6% market share of dry freight vans. It also builds converter dollies, and has plenty of room in the Monon plant to assemble refrigerated trailers using components produced by CIMC.

John Nelson, president of Direct Chassis, founded his company in 2004 to capitalize on his experience in the intermodal industry. After setting up plants to remanufacture container chassis, he formed a strategic relationship with CIMC for manufacture of replacement chassis frames in China, as well as domestic containers and platform trailer frames. In the past four years, CIMC and Direct Chassis have built some 25,000 domestic containers and 30,000 domestic container chassis for the J B Hunt fleet alone.

CIMC and Direct Chassis jointly introduced the new refrigerated trailer, the CIMC R8000, at the Mid-America show. It has been engineered to meet all DOT regulations in the USA. The show model was designed for truckload operation with two inches of polyurethane foam in the walls, 3" in the roof and doors, and 2.5" in the floor.

Specs include two-piece heavy-duty top rail, l.13" high extruded J-posts and roofbows, .040 prepainted aluminum side sheets with corrugations, Kemlite .075" interior lining and .040" on ceiling, and 1.25" extruded aluminum duct floor with knurled surface. The rear frame is formed stainless steel. It has rivetless door panels and five hinges per door. The floor carries a 16,000-lb rating. The 4¼" deep upper coupler exceeds AAR requirements.

Also exhibited by CIMC was a food-grade stainless steel tank trailer built in Belgium by Burg Industries., a company owned 80% by CIMC. While such a tank trailer is not legal on US highways, David Li indicated that CIMC plans eventually to get into the North American tank truck market with tanks of European design, Chinese manufacture, and US assembly.