Volvo Trucks North America holds just 2% to 3% of the North American vocational truck market — and on Wednesday in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, it unveiled the machine designed to change that: the all-new VNX, a 540-horsepower vocational and heavy-haul truck aimed at a segment worth roughly a quarter of the continent's truck sales.

President Peter Voorhoeve framed the gap bluntly at a preview event at Volvo Construction Equipment's Customer Center. "We don't really play in that vocational segment. We have like a two or three percent market share," he said. "In the largest market of the world, apart from China, why would we not play in a segment that we are so rooted in the rest of the world?"

The arithmetic behind the push is straightforward. Vocational work — construction, infrastructure, industrial builds — accounts for about 25% of the North American truck market by Voorhoeve's estimate, matching regional haul, while long haul takes the remaining half. Volvo's FMX already holds about 30% of the vocational market in both Europe and Brazil. In North America, the company has sold the VHD since 2000, but that truck covered a limited range of applications.

"Growth in vocational is a natural next step for Volvo Trucks, right as we're seeing stable demand for trucks on construction sites, infrastructure projects and industrial builds across the country," Voorhoeve said in a statement.

The VNX shares its electrical architecture with the long-haul VNL and regional-haul VNR — the product of what Volvo said was a $3 billion investment in product development and manufacturing. Volvo built the truck around feedback from VHD owners, its vocational business abroad, and the job-site experience of Volvo Construction Equipment, which has sold machines in the U.S. for more than 50 years.

What does the VNX offer on the job site?

Remote Steer stands out among the vocational features. It gives an operator control of the truck from outside the cab at speeds up to 5 mph, targeting mixers, cranes and vac units that need precise movement.

"Basically what we've done is we've made a giant RC truck," said John Moore, product marketing manager at Volvo Trucks North America. "If you ever try to drive a mixer and back it in real close to a building or where they're pouring concrete, you pretty much have to have a person to guide you. Remote steer lets a mixer be backed in with one person."

Terrain Brake holds the truck on steep, rocky ground the moment the driver lifts off the accelerator — stopping forward or backward lurches faster than the driver could reach the service brakes. A direction-change feature lets drivers shift between forward and reverse without touching the brake, aimed at dump truck operators who shuttle back and forth all day.

How much power and weight can it handle?

The lineup covers three models: a 300 day cab and a 440 with a 42-inch sleeper, each available as a tractor or straight truck, plus a 640 tractor with a 62-inch midroof sleeper. Every model comes in axle-forward and axle-back configurations, with heat-treated steel frame rails rated for 160,000 pounds gross vehicle weight.

The truck runs Volvo's D13, rated up to 540 horsepower and 1,950 pound-feet of torque, certified to EPA 2027 emissions standards in all 50 states. Moore said that rating puts the VNX within 60 horsepower of the 600-horsepower big-block engines at the top of the class.

The 2027 D13's engine brake climbs to 630 braking horsepower, up from 500 and above the engine's own 540-horsepower output. "Typically engines rate their engine brake the same as their horsepower. This one is different — we have extra braking," Moore said. That margin matters on steep downgrades, where service brakes can overheat. The new I-Shift transmission shifts 30% faster, in 13- and 14-speed versions with crawler gears.

What safety and connectivity come standard?

Standard forward pedestrian detection scans from 23 to 230 feet, joined by blind spot detection on both sides and a 360-degree camera. The cab uses one-third more ultra-high-strength steel than Volvo's legacy vocational trucks, and Volvo said standard driver-side curtain airbags make it the only OEM in North America to offer them on a vocational truck.

Every VNX ships with a factory-installed 4G telematics gateway for remote diagnostics and over-the-air programming. Volvo said it will announce the start of sales later this year, giving fleet buyers a concrete decision point as vocational demand holds steady through the infrastructure build-out.