Every year, over two and a half million people rent a U-Haul to move long-distance. Since seemingly the beginning of time, U-Haul’s familiar white and orange box trucks have been offered in lengths from 10 feet to 26 feet. Now, just in time for the busy moving season of the summer, U-Haul is bringing out the big guns. This is the new U-Haul EM “Easy Mover,” and it’s a 29-foot-long (36 feet total) beast of a moving truck based on a medium-duty Peterbilt. If that’s not cool enough, under the hood sits the first gasoline engine built by Cummins.
There has been a rumor of a bigger U-Haul coming for a while. Carspotters on the Internet have been seeing Peterbilts adorned with U-Haul’s unmistakable livery for over a month now, but U-Haul itself has been quiet. That changed yesterday when U-Haul teased the upcoming rig with only a dark picture and a caption without any real information. U-Haul has finally revealed the new truck today, and it’s glorious.
U-Haul says this truck is being launched now, right on time for the summertime moving rush. Just how much do Americans love moving during the summer? U-Haul says that almost half of America’s residential relocations happen between the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends. Some of those households are large and, sometimes, U-Haul’s biggest truck, the 26-foot JH “Super Mover,” just isn’t cavernous enough. Instead of renting a second truck or a trailer, you now have the option of a truck that fits even more than before.
Based On A Peterbilt 536
U-Haul’s choice for its bigger rig is the Peterbilt Model 536. This Pete is a Class 6 medium-duty truck, a classification that runs from 19,501 pounds to 26,000 pounds gross vehicle weight rating (the maximum a vehicle can weigh with passengers, cargo, and fluids). The Model 536 was introduced in 2021 and targets non-CDL operators and rental firms. So it’s right up U-Haul’s alley.
Peterbilt says the Model 536 features a 2.1-meter-wide robotically-assembled aluminum cab that sits 40.5 inches off the ground. The cab is reportedly eight inches wider than Peterbilt’s previous generation medium-duty truck and features improvements like better NVH, self-closing doors, and bigger windows. The Model 536 is also advertised as being maneuverable thanks to its 51-foot turn radius, and safer thanks to TPMS, lane departure warning, and collision mitigation.
Of course, the average U-Haul renter probably won’t care about any of this, if they even notice! It’s notable that, despite having a larger box than the Ford F-650 Super Duty-based U-Haul JH, the Peterbilt has the same weight rating. As is standard practice for U-Haul, the rental version, which has a box built by U-Haul in Pomona, California, and Warrington, Pennsylvania, has a listed gross weight of 25,999 pounds. That means you can drive one on your standard driver’s license pretty much anywhere in America. Some states have stricter licensing. In Illinois, for example, your standard license gets you to 16,000 pounds. However, there is an exception for rental vehicles.
Here’s the spec sheet for the new U-Haul EM “Easy Mover,” from U-Haul:
How big is a 29′ truck?
– Inside Dimensions: 29’2″ x 8’1″ x 8’9″ (LxWxH).
– Mom’s Attic: 2’7″ x 8’1″ x 3’2″ (LxWxH).
– Deck Height from Ground: 30-34″.
– Door Opening: 7’9″ x 7’4″ (WxH).
– Loading Ramp Width: 2′ 7″.
– Max Load: 11,939 lbs.
– Gross Vehicle Weight: 25,999 lbs. max.
– Empty Weight: 14,060 lbs.
– Towing Capacity: Up to 10,000 lbs.
– Volume: 2,057 cu. ft.
– Clearance Height: 12 ft.
Additionally, the cab seats three, including the driver; the box fits 2,057 cu. ft. of cargo, and luxuries include air-conditioning, cruise control, power windows, and power locks. Hydraulic brakes are also standard.
The EM allegedly measures 43’10”-long, or over nine feet longer than the 34’5″-long U-Haul JH 26-foot truck. It also weighs around 900 more pounds empty and technically has a payload roughly 900 pounds lower than the shorter JH. Again, I doubt the average U-Haul renter will care, but the figures are fun to look at!
Update: Weirdly, if you run U-Haul’s numbers against Peterbilt’s spec of 107 inches from the front bumper to the back of the cab, this truck should be about 36 feet, not 43 feet as stated by U-Haul. It’s unclear where U-Haul is getting the extra 7 feet of length from on its spec sheet. In reality, the EM might be only a foot longer than the JH.
The First Cummins Gas Engine
The neatest feature, I think, is what’s under the hood. The Peterbilt Model 536 usually ships with a PACCAR PX-9 8.9-liter straight-six diesel with up to 380 HP and 1,250 lb.-ft. of torque on tap. Optional is the PACCAR PX-7, which is a 6.7-liter straight-six diesel derived from the Cummins B6.7 with 325 HP and 750 lb.-ft. of torque. Alternatively, you can get a Model 536 with a Cummins L9N or a B6.7N engine, which runs natural gas.
However, U-Haul’s fleet has run on 87 octane gasoline for years. Diesels were last in the U-Haul fleet back in the mid-2000s, and by then, those trucks were well-worn “In-Town” movers and not used for one-way rentals. In 2006, my dad managed to rent a 1980s International S1600 from our local U-Haul outfit, and it had a diesel V8, a manual transmission, air brakes, and even an air suspension that kneeled for easier loading.
U-Haul is all about driving ease nowadays, so you won’t find madness like that, sadly. So, what did U-Haul do about a truck that normally ships with diesel engines? As luck would have it, Peterbilt already had a solution. A little over a year ago, I wrote about how Cummins launched its first-ever gasoline engine, the B6.7 Octane turbocharged inline-six. This engine is pretty much the B6.7 diesel, but adapted to gasoline.
Here’s what I wrote last year:
In 2022, Cummins launched what it called its “fuel-agnostic” engine strategy. According to trucking journal CCJ, the goal of the Cummins fuel-agnostic strategy is to create a bridge between the heavy diesel engines of today and the heavy electric motors of tomorrow. The company recognizes that electric power is not yet ready to take over from diesel, so until electric and battery tech reaches that point, Cummins wants to offer other ways of reducing emissions and operating costs in everything from school buses to highway tractors.
[…]
How it works is pretty neat. To create the new architecture, Cummins started with existing platforms. Cummins says that the components below the heads of the base engines are supposed to be similar across the lineup. In other words, the bits under the head of the B6.7 Octane should be bits largely similar to what you get in the B6.7 diesel straight-six that powers hundreds of thousands of trucks. The parts commonality is pitched as not only a way for Cummins to make a variety of engines easier, but for fleet operators to have an easier time. In theory, a B6.7 Octane may have a similar diagnosis tree as a B6.7 diesel, at least under the head, anyway. Cummins also sees the B6.7 Octane as having diesel-like service intervals and saving fleets additional money as they won’t have to re-tool service departments just for the gasser.
[…]
The company goes further and says this is the only purpose-built gasoline engine in the medium-duty truck market, and that it gets up to 10 percent better fuel economy than other gas engines in medium-duty trucks. The biggest advantage, Cummins says, will be in maintenance. The B6.7 Octane has passive catalysts for emissions controls, and that means no DPFs and no DEF to worry about anymore. According to Cummins, the engine should only require the kind of maintenance expected for a gas engine in a pickup truck. This engine is also supposed to work a bit like a diesel. Cummins is currently quoting a maximum horsepower rating of 300 HP with max torque pegged at 660 lb-ft. Now, the truck engine nuts among you might find these numbers interesting. The horsepower rating is far lower than the 430 HP on tap in the Ford 7.3-liter Godzilla V8, but the twist in the Cummins is better than the Godzilla’s 475 lb-ft. Again, that’s by design. Like a common diesel engine, the Cummins straight-six gasser is supposed to make substantially more torque than horsepower.
Cummins says that all of the changes needed to get a B6.7 to run on gasoline are all in the head. Along with changing fuel injection from diesel to gasoline and adding spark plugs, Cummins also changed the compression ratio. Sadly, Cummins hasn’t made public the exact changes, but does say that the block and internals under the head are identical to the diesels.
The B6.7 Octane is very diesel-like in its features and performance, too. In addition to making up to 300 HP and 660 lb-ft of torque, the engine has a governed top speed of 3,200 RPM. It also sports a water-cooled and gear-driven 16.7 CFM naturally aspirated air compressor. Even wilder is the fact that this gas engine has a Jacobs Engine Brake, just like a diesel would have.
The idea here is to give diesel-like output but with gasoline fuel prices, lower maintenance costs, and no worrying about diesel exhaust fluid. In the Peterbilt Model 536, U-Haul says to expect 8 mpg, or two fewer than a U-Haul Ford F-650. Of course, your actual mileage may vary wildly. But 8 mpg is solid for a 36-foot brick being shoved down a highway. U-Haul says the engine is mated to a 60-gallon fuel tank and an eight-speed automatic transmission.
A Familiar U-Haul Experience, Just Bigger
Here’s what U-Haul said in its press release about the new rig:
“We wanted to design a truck that fits everybody,” explained Jeremy Donohue, U-Haul Truck Product Director. “If you’ve never driven a truck, our goal was to remove the adversity, so nothing is difficult. Everything is intuitive. Everything is accessible. Controls are easily laid out. The EM’s features are like every other vehicle our customers drive.”
So, the EM is certainly one of the cooler new U-Hauls we’ve seen in a while. U-Haul says the EM is the company’s first new truck since the 20-foot TT model was introduced in 2011. It also means that U-Haul now has two big trucks in its fleet again after the 24-foot GH had been discontinued for years.
Of course, while it will be legal for just about anyone to drive one of these, please take care. This 36 feet of medium-duty truck isn’t going to handle like any passenger vehicle you can buy. You will need to take wide turns, you will need to slow down for curves, and you will need to give yourself ample braking distance. You will also need to make sure that whatever bridge you go under will fit a 12-foot-tall truck. Also, speed is not your friend in a rig this big. But you can do it if you do a little research first and be responsible.
U-Haul says the EM “Easy Mover” will roll out about now to the Los Angeles and Philadelphia rental markets. Then, the rest of the nation will get them. Rates start at $49.95 plus mileage for in-town rentals. I can’t wait to try one out just for the funsies.
Topshot: UHaul
I hope these new ones still come with the tiny ‘efficiency’ gauge.
Interesting, I need to take my Geo to a show in Austin but don’t want to drive it the four and a half hours down… it would fit in the back of that… talk about a luxury enclosed cargo space!
Not to be a harbinger of doom and all but it’s only a matter of time before one of these trucks gets “Storrowed”!!
IYKYK!
Haha – yup. Our local Stolen Vehicle FB group features them EVERY day.
I assume Mercedes is already forming plans to turn this into a motor home
Is this the first gasoline engine with a Jake Brake!? Makes me want to rent one just to try it out.
And anybody with a licence can drive one-
U-Haul probably got those trucks cheap, but the repair bills on the cab and hood will be expensive. Paccar body parts are sky high. They dodged a bullet by going Cummins. They could also take the trucks to other Cummins dealers.
“This engine is also supposed to work a bit like a diesel. Cummins is currently quoting a maximum horsepower rating of 300 HP with max torque pegged at 660 lb-ft. Now, the truck engine nuts among you might find these numbers interesting. The horsepower rating is far lower than the 430 HP on tap in the Ford 7.3-liter Godzilla V8”
And as someone who has rented the odd Uhaul truck, the added horsepower the Ford 7.3L engine has is of little-to-no value to me.
I would happily give up 130hp for better fuel economy. And 300hp is plenty. It’s not like I’m gonna race the thing when I have it loaded up with my furniture and other stuff.
Article spoke of an 8 speed automatic transmission….from who? ZF? I’m sure it will be just fine, but it will be interesting to see the lasting durability of this setup and also the response from Ford as they have a long standing price advantage of an in-house drive train setup…can PB keep this up? The market will decide.
Usually depending on the engine or customer Cummins equipped trucks will be equipped with a PACCAR or an Eaton transmission,unless Cummins developed something in-house.
Mercedes, you should start a “head of lettuce vs. this U-Haul succumbing to the 11’8” bridge” contest.
You can’t make substantially more torque than horsepower because 1) horsepower is derived from torque 2) horsepower and torque have different units.
When comparing horsepower and torque for any engine using bhp and lb-ft, horsepower is “lower” – again, different units but entertaining the idea – than torque up to 5252RPM, equal at 5252RPM, and “greater” then torque above 5252RPM.
The B6.7octane has a rated speed of 3200RPM, so it naturally has “less”horsepower than torque throughout its range of engine speeds.
A better way to describe engines like this is that they make peak torque (at low engine speeds and feature broad and flat torque curves, giving them accessible power at low engine speeds
And a slightly different way of expressing it — since the HP and torque numbers are different units and applied to different aspects, they do not directly and independently relate; the HP number is a resultant of both the torque and the RPM. So, an engine that revs high can have a HP number higher than its torque number, as long as the torque curve doesn’t drop too much, while an engine like this that only keeps its revs low will never get to a HP number higher than its torque.
If anyone is interested, while looking up data to prove rentals are safe I find some FMVSS data that states Penske had the highest maintained vehicles (only 2.2% taken off the road) while Hertz had the worst (Uhaul was at 8.7%).
They based it off of roadside state trooper inspections. All trucks combined scored a laughibly high score of 22%. 1 in 5 failed a roadside inspection.
Have you seen the cars on the road in Detroit? Lololololl!
I’ve rented U-Haul a lot and rarely got a good one. I rented Penske once cross country and it was night and day better.
I’ve rented a couple U-Hauls and a Budget truck. The Budget truck was cleaner and nicer looking than either of the U-Hauls by far. Also better customer service.
When I rented the Budget truck, I had originally reserved a U-Haul truck and flatbed car trailer. The day before I was supposed to pick them up, I got a call saying the truck was in one city that was an hour and a half to the northeast, and the trailer was in a different city an hour to the south. They gave me the option of either canceling my reservation and getting a refund, or I could drive around and pick up my rentals. I chose to cancel and immediately started calling around. Budget told me they didn’t have a truck in town but would bring one overnight.
Had horrible experience with U-Hell trucks. Will never again rent a motorized vehicle from them. Will actively try for Penske, if that is unavailable, will rent from literally anyone other than U-Hell.
Budget was several hundred dollars less to rent roughly equivalent vans for a move from Seattle to New Orleans and was based on a Chevy Express 3500 chassis. It was quieter and more comfortable to drive than U-Haul’s F-350. That said, the Fords did tow a car on a dolly over the Rockies one way and over the Siskiyous. Both routes have plenty of 6% grades and the transmission did a good job of downshifting on downhill stretches to keep speeds in check.
The thing I miss from several long-haul moves is cruise control. It gets pretty tiring to hold your right foot for hours on end.
I’ve learned never to do the online reservation and pickup, the last van I rented was full of empty beer bottles and trash.
Reminds me of this:
Tuttle: You haven’t done anything with this.
George: Well bear in mind that I am in the smaller office.
Tuttle: I’m beginning to wonder if you understand anything.
George: You are aware that Penske is interested in me.
Tuttle: (To U-Haul/Hertz)
(scoffs) You’re not Penske material!
I’d chalk the length discrepancy up to dyslexia. I’m guessing that 34′-10″ is the correct answer, based on the other dimensions listed.
I’m thinking that the discrepancy is a result of U-Haul mistakenly adding the full box length including the attic area ( instead of without) to the full cab length, plus a fudge factor for the rear bumper or ramp protrusion (which is missing on their dimensioned drawing), and possibly an inch or two mistakenly added for the cab-to-box gap.
The story here isn’t the truck, the engine or the transmission.
It’s the fact that you can rent one of these without a CDL. That’s utterly wild.
It’s about twice the weight you are allowed to drive with a car license in the UK (probably similar in Europe). I’d not realised until now, but the categorisation is solely based on weight, so I could drive something as long and wide as this, as long as it isn’t too heavy.
“just out driving my 50-foot block of styrofoam, officer”
The Illinois allowance of “unless it’s a rental” is interesting. It makes sense from a standpoint of desired uses, but makes the opposite of sense regarding driver skills and experience.
Totally wild to me. I’m in the UK and can drive up to 7.5t on my licence. And that’s only because I got my licence over 30 years ago. Anyone who passed their test in the last 30 years or thereabouts is limited to 3.5t (what’s that, 7,700 pounds?). Some youngsters are at risk of their licence not covering a big electric SUV.
really interested to see how the gas engine works out. I mean, its clearly more than just the head. The pistons, for one, would have to be a completely different design. The biggest quirk for me though would be a 3200 rpm redline and loads of boost.
I have reached out to Cummins to see if they’re willing to cough up more info. I love the idea of this engine and am disappointed that Cummins didn’t do a deep dive. Though maybe customers don’t care so long as it works.
There’s quite a bit of information out on this engine in the engineering publications. Simple description is that they made a new cylinder head for the Octane. It’s aluminum, 4-valve, pent-roof with dual cam phasers so basically modern light duty engine spec. Using the cam phasers to run Miller cycle for knock reduction. The 220 hp rating is 15 bar BMEP (torque normalized by displacement so you can compare engines of different sizes). The 300 hp rating is a little higher BMEP for the peak torque, but they managed to get 19 bar BMEP for rated power – probably dropped compression ratio quite a bit to achieve that with such a big-bore engine.
They haven’t published compression ratio numbers, but figure the lower power ratings are around 10:1 and the 300 hp rating is around 9 or 9.5.
Modern passenger car engines can get to 11 or 12 compression ratio with high BMEP but they have much smaller cylinder bores. Knock gets worse with larger engine bore size since the flame has to move farther to consume all the fuel (so more crank angle duration) and that leaves too much time for the unburned gasoline to ignite. So as the bore gets larger, your compression ratio goes down.
The diesel 6.7 is probably around 16 or 17:1 compression ratio – I don’t remember exactly. So it’s far more efficient. But for U-Haul, they don’t pay for the fuel so they don’t really care about efficiency. They do pay for maintenance and purchase, and the Octane will cost less to buy (gasoline fuel system is a lot cheaper than diesel fuel system and the 3-way catalyst for the Octane is way cheaper than the diesel aftertreatment). U-Haul would probably end up buying the DEF for the diesel trucks so that would be a cost for them too. So the less efficient gasoline engine is a good deal for U-Haul on their balance sheet, and the renter will pay a little more for fuel (not so much more as you’d think with the gasoline:diesel price difference in the US) and probably won’t care since it’s a one-time thing.
Cummins likes to keep some of their technical information a secret (corporate espionage is a real thing nowadays).
Direct fuel injection only? That’s fucking dumb for a commercial gasoline engine, especially their first one. Gonna be a LOT of carbon on them valves.
Also this thing weighs 1300lbs… that’s way too much for a gas engine, especially if they are put in to CDL cheaters (25,950lb GVWR)… it’s gonna cost some payload where every single pound counts. I’d rather just have the diesel at that point.
I applaud cummins for offering a gasoline option, but I’m skeptical on their execution.
The specs slide from Cummins shows it doesn’t have an EGR. So carbon on the valves shouldn’t be an issue.
The industry has largely reduced intake valve deposit issues since the early GDI engines. Most of that came from the oil vapor and drops that followed the PCV flow back to the intake. Engines in the last decade or so have had very effective oil traps in the PCV line and deposit formation is much more rare of a problem now.
There will always be exceptions for cars that get poor quality gasoline or strange operating histories. But it’s not like when my friend had to spend the weekend walnut shell blasting his intake ports on a 335i.
“Well, as long as you have absolutely no experience whatsoever, I guess it’s fine.”
I would say it’s mostly to prevent commercial usage of medium duty vehicles by your average person, therefore less total miles accrued by unqualified persons, but still flexible for your average person’s needs. Seems like a fair balance.
Not even remotely. The “average” driver shouldn’t even be allowed to drive in this country, let alone a massive vehicle that handles like shit. But, ya know, “freedom”, or something.
60 gallon fuel tank but u-haul will only keep 1/8 of a tank full, assuming these things have gas tanks mounted like the F650 models. Per my local Uhaul its too easy to steal gas from those tanks so they keep them close to empty.
oh so those who ran out of ELD time, can now just rent from U-Haul.
I see them all the time switching to Enterprice or Penske trucks once they have maxed their hours.
Told our freight forwarder “If we see another one like this come to pick up our goods, this will be the last time for you”