When it comes to cleaning up the environment, freight trucks are often labeled as being in the “hard to abate” sector. I come across this term frequently and it makes me cringe. Curing cancer is hard. Getting Republicans and Democrats to agree on anything is hard. Eliminating racism in America is hard. Getting freight trucks to emit fewer pollutants is not even in the economy overflow parking lot area of the “hard” ball park.
Google the term “hard to abate” and you will find millions of entries. The term deals with reducing emissions and becoming more environmentally efficient. Heavy-duty trucking is frequently put in this category. At one point in time, this was probably a good assessment.
Today’s new truck technologies emit significantly less harmful elements than older trucks. The challenge is about retiring older vehicles and reducing the average age of vehicles. This is a matter of buying a new truck and scrapping an old one. Excuse me if that does not make my list of things that are hard to do.
NACFE’s 2017 Run on Less demonstration showed that modern trucks driven by great drivers could exceed 10 MPG in real-world conditions and with long-haul commercial loads. NACFE’s 2019 Run on Less Regional demonstration showed that modern diesel tractors on regional routes could average 8.7 MPG in real-world operations with real-world regional haul loads.
On LinkedIn I follow reports from great drivers such as Henry Albert, Clark Reed, Joel Morrow and others who regularly post their daily route LinkeDrive reports, and all are regularly able to exceed 10 MPG in real-world conditions with their commercial loads. NACFE’s Annual Fleet Fuel Study tracks the various trends on industry averages and shows the average MPG has been improving for freight tractors over the period 2011 to 2019 at a pace of 2% per year.
In 2009, I helped draft the Peterbilt/Cummins proposal for the first Department of Energy SuperTruck to publicly exceed in 2013 10 MPG. By 2016, four OEMs had successfully exceeded that supposedly challenging target. By 2017, a good deal of the SuperTruck “magic” had started being incorporated into OEM production models. In 2009, the thought was that about 6 MPG was the state-of-the-art in the industry as measured against the baseline best aerodynamic models at that time pulling the standard 53-foot non-aerodynamic trailers.
I frequently highlight that improving fuel economy means reducing emissions and reducing operating costs, all at the same time. A win-win-win situation. It really doesn’t matter which hat you wear.
