The report, which includes the results of a deep-dive investigation into the adoption of various products and practices for improving freight efficiency among 21 major North American fleets, featured multiple key findings about the success of fuel-savings technologies in the trucking industry.
NACFE says key findings included:
- The average fleet-wide fuel economy of the trucks in this study was 7.27 MPG in 2018; it was 7.23 MPG the prior year.
- For the 16 years of this study, the average rate of improvement in MPG is 2.0 percent.
- The fleets in the study are saving $9,912 over the national average of 5.98 MPG. If fuel costs had been at the four-year average of $3.89 per gallon, the savings would have been $7,941 and $12,124, respectively.
- The 21 fleets operating 73,844 trucks saved $895,318,953 in 2018 compared to the average trucks on the road.
- The 21 fleets are increasing their adoption rate of 85 fuel-saving technologies and practices. In 2003 the adoption rate was 17 percent; in 2018 it is 45 percent.
With that data, NACFE says it was able to reach multiple conclusions:
- Multiple factors are influencing fleet adoption. New factors have emerged that influence decisions by fleets to improve efficiency including the current cost of fuel, potential future cost, federal and local regulations and increasing public demand for more sustainable operations.
- Fleets continue to adopt fuel-saving technologies. They are implementing technologies on their tractors and trailers improving overall adoption to 45 percent. Specific technologies adopted vary by fleet duty cycle, business models, fleet size and other factors.
- Manufacturers accelerated delivery of technologies. They are delivering more advanced generations of existing technologies to shorten the payback period and mitigate the challenges of adoption. Other advancements come both as novel technologies that provide the same function in a different way and new technologies that address areas not considered in the past. 2018 also provided more new trucks that comply with Phase 1 of the federal GHG rule and manufacturers are also developing technologies to meet GHGp2 starting in January 2021.
- A significant gap to best-of-the-best still exists. The average fleet-wide performance of 7.27 MPG improved year-over-year, 2018 compared to 2017, along a rate of 2.0 percent per year since 2011. It is expected that this level could reach somewhere between the 10.1 and 8.3 MPG demonstrated during the two Run on Less by NACFE best-of-the-best demonstrations.
For more information, and to download a copy of this year’s study, please CLICK HERE.
