Most truckers never get to see past the showroom floor. Today we go all the way inside.

We took cameras into Volvo Trucks' New River Valley plant in Dublin, Virginia — the facility where the all-new Volvo VNL is born, and followed the truck from the very first weld to the end of the assembly line.

Inside you'll see the brand-new Plant 2, an almost fully robotic operation where the VNL cab is welded from high-strength steel (with ultra-high-strength zones above the doors that create survivable space for the driver in a severe accident). Then we cross to Plant 1 — the original 1975 building, celebrating 50 years — where axles are assembled upside down for ergonomics, the I-Shift transmission shifts 30% faster than the legacy version, and the engine is engineered to break down and away from the cab in a forward collision instead of into it. We even get a look at the 8-story automated tower that stores and sequences every cab, hood, and painted part in the dark.

But the machines are only half the story. This plant runs on renewable power from the New River — and on families. We talk with employees 8, 26, 28, and 37 years into their careers, some working alongside their dads, uncles, and spouses in a factory where second- and third-generation Volvo employees are the norm. Before we leave, we see the Spirit of NRV — a custom truck carrying the name of every operator in the plant — and climb inside a 1982 Wilson Trucking rig, one of the first Volvo-branded trucks ever built here, sold back to the factory for exactly one dollar.

If you drive a truck, spec trucks, or just want to see how a modern semi actually comes together — this one's for you.

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