Evaluation of the Heavy Vehicle Event Data Recorder for the Freightliner New Cascadia with Detroit Diesel Engines

For model year 2018, Freightliner introduced the New Cascadia model to their lineup of Class 8 trucks. Testing of the Freightliner New Cascadia with Detroit Diesel engines was conducted to evaluate the accuracy of the reported event data contained in the engine Electronic Control Units (ECUs) for these trucks. The testing showed that there are occurrences in DDEC Reports, specifically in the Last Stop Record and Hard Braking event data, when the time between successive event data points was two seconds rather than the reported one second interval. The occurrence of the two-second anomaly was not always present in a Last Stop Record or Hard Braking event. When the two-second anomaly was present in the event data, it occurred randomly and no pattern to when this anomaly occurs was determined. No method was found to be able to detect the presence of this anomaly from the review of a Last Stop Record or Hard Braking event. The testing also showed that the magnitudes of the reported vehicle speed, engine speed, and accelerator pedal position matched the respective magnitudes being broadcast on the vehicle’s SAE J1939 controller area network (CAN).