It’s been said that necessity is the mother of invention. And in the trucking industry, the list of needs is never ending. We always desire to squeeze more miles out of a gallon of fuel, keep our drivers safer, and make them more productive as well.

For decades, Volvo has led the way in innovation. But how do we do that year after year? How do you start with a blank sheet of paper and end up with a product as amazing as the all-new Volvo VNL?

It comes down to inspiration. Or in this case, inspirations. Let’s take a big-picture view of the revelations and motivations that went into designing our best truck ever.

A first for the North American market

“This is the first time Volvo Trucks North America has been able to design a truck for the North American customer,” explains Brian Balicki, head of design for Volvo Trucks NA. “We were asked to build a brand-new product from the ground up. So, we wanted to develop a visual strategy that would become the beacon for our brand.”

As anyone who has purchased a new car or truck knows, buying decisions aren’t always based completely on logic. The new VNL appeals both to the brain and the heart.

“We started by imagining what this product creates as a mood or an emotion,” Balicki says. “Because that’s really our job—to create the emotional side of the product. It’s the emotional attachment that convinces the customer they need to have this product—far beyond just a rational decision.”

The elements of design, inspired by nature

Every Volvo truck in North America is assembled here. So, it was only natural that our great, vast, and extremely varied continent, so familiar to truck drivers, became the source of design inspiration.

“Our focus is on our North American customers, and the environments they are in every day,” says Brooke Elliot, senior CMF designer for Volvo Trucks NA. That led to the formation of the distinct environments, or “biomes,” exclusive to North America. Obviously familiar to the drivers who make their living here, these biomes inspired the form and functions found throughout the new VNL.

The biomes consist of the Desert, Prairie, Coastal Forests (think East and West Coasts), Arctic Tundra, and Urban (or City).

“The harsh conditions in some of those regions put our trucks to the test on a daily basis,” Balicki notes. “A lot of these vehicles have to go from coast to coast here in the U.S., and that’s usually about 3,000 miles across three or four biomes on a given trip.”

“Then there’s one biome in particular that we need to pay attention to—the one that humans have generated: cities, towns, and villages. The Urban biome directly influences the design and layout of the driving and daily-work environment. These vehicles must be developed and engineered to be able to navigate large cities.”

If you’ve ever traversed from one end of the country to the other, you are no doubt aware of the constant changing of elevations. It’s part of what makes the North American landscape so unique. And it was the inspiration for design features throughout the truck. “The elevation pattern we designed connects the biomes,” says Elliot. “It plays a vital role in connecting a lot of the different components in the vehicle. For instance, you’ll notice we applied this elevation pattern to the headlights, to the dash, to the door panels, really trying to create a cohesive and consistent look and feel to the Volvo experience.”

The concept of the North American continent as inspiration immediately resonated with Jonathan Disley, design director for Volvo Trucks Global. “When I first saw the biomes that Brian showed me, I was truly impressed by how they managed to achieve a real thread throughout the whole design process. The biomes hold everything together, from start to finish, and create an incredible product.”

“This team should be incredibly proud about what they’ve done,” adds Peter Voorhoeve, president of Volvo Trucks North America. “This has been six years of intense, hard work, as design collaborated with aerodynamics and safety engineers, creating technologies that didn’t exist. They packaged that into a design which feels seamless; it looks efficient—like something that you’ve never seen before. This product is truly amazing.”

In the end, it’s all about the customer. In this case, the North American customer. Balicki sums it up best. “We hope that when our customers experience this product they say, ‘They thought about me.’ That really means a lot to us here in design. It signals that we have done our job well.”