Mills Carter, business analyst for YellaWood – a $1 billion lumber company – recently made an extremely straightforward case as to the value proper data analysis can offer trucking companies.
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...Read the rest of this storyDirector of Fleet Procurement Mike Casteel says UPS has “a lot of experience with propane autogas,” including running over 2,000 propane-powered package cars in the U.S. and Canada. iStockPhoto
">Director of Fleet Procurement Mike Casteel says UPS has “a lot of experience with propane autogas,” including running over 2,000 propane-powered package cars in the U.S. and Canada. iStockPhoto
">Even as natural gas yet reigns as king of alternative fuels for trucks, and electric drive and fuel cells are gaining interest as up-and-coming technologies, there are still other fuels that fleets may consider as worthy alternatives to straight-up petroleum diesel.
For commercial vehicles, these other choices chiefly include propane (aka autogas), biodiesel, renewable diesel, and dimethyl ether (DME). Each has its advocates. Propane autogas has been in use for years, and the two diesel alternatives can be adopted simply by fueling with them. DME is more of an outlier in that it caught a lot of attention a few years ago but is not engendering much high-level interest of late.
“All alternative fuels are viable, but not in all applications,” says analyst Kenny Vieth, president of ACT Research. “Because each company's goal for its fleet is different, even two similar fleets may make different fuel choices. Each fleet will assess its own corporate goals, the local/regional availability and price of the respective alternative fuels, and any regulations and incentives for the areas in which the fleet operates before making the fuel decision. Cost, range, weight, performance, and time will all factor into each fleet's decision.”
Bob Carrick, Freightliner's vocational sales manager - natural gas, who is a former fleet manager, handicaps the other alternatives succinctly: “Propane autogas makes sense and is gaining traction in the lower GVW classes, up through Class 7. Renewable diesel is a very clean alternative to diesel, and so far has demonstrated fine performance with no significant downsides. Biodiesel works in low concentrations [blends]. DME, however, is still a long way from any adoption. There is no fuel supply, and ...Read the rest of this story
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...Read the rest of this storyA policy of “opportunity charging” that has drivers putting trucks on charging devices during lunch, breaks and other downtimes is a key component in keeping the trucks' state of charge high for longer periods of time. Photo: Orange EV
">A policy of “opportunity charging” that has drivers putting trucks on charging devices during lunch, breaks and other downtimes is a key component in keeping the trucks' state of charge high for longer periods of time. Photo: Orange EV
">ORLANDO, FL – Electric trucks are much simpler to maintain and operate than diesel units. But that doesn't mean there aren't challenges for fleets that elect to evaluate and/or operate them. A session this week at the Technology & Maintenance Council Fall Meeting offered advice and answers for fleets considering electric trucks for their applications.
Opening presenter Mike Saxton, chief commerical officer for electric truck manufacturer OrangeEV, said that “range anxiety” concerns aside, his company has all-electric yard trucks operating for more than 24 hours on a single charge. However, he added that a policy of “opportunity charging” — a policy that has drivers putting trucks on charging devices during lunch, breaks and other downtimes — is a key component in keeping the trucks' state of charge high for longer periods of time. Furthermore, Saxton added, most fleet facilities today, as well as existing structures that could be converted into a fleet facility, already have the necessary electrical capacity to handle charging electric trucks.
Saxton said all-electric truck drivetrains last significantly longer than comparable diesel drivetrains, and that a truck's battery pack should last as long as the life of the truck itself in most operating conditions.
“Lithium-ion batteries do degrade over time with repeated charges,” he explained. “However, it takes about 2,000 charges before your battery capacity degrades — usually about 80%. You won't notice this as a drop-off in performance. But you will notice you're having to charge the truck more often.” But, he added, it generally takes between 7 and 10 years before this become an issue.
One potential limiting factor that ...Read the rest of this story
TMC panelists Bill Brown, Colin Crowley, Peter Savage and Deryk Powell outlined what they've learned as more and more fleets struggled to adopt new technologies and make them work effectively. Photo: Jack Roberts
">TMC panelists Bill Brown, Colin Crowley, Peter Savage and Deryk Powell outlined what they've learned as more and more fleets struggled to adopt new technologies and make them work effectively. Photo: Jack Roberts
">Selecting and implementing new technology and making it work can be a challenge for all of us. It's especially daunting for fleets, which must not only control costs during the implementation process, but also put new technology to work effectively to ensure downstream return-on-investment.
Four fleet experts with recent experience in adopting new technologies and making them work gave an overview of their experiences and hard-won lessons during a panel discussion entitled “The Challenges and Pitfalls of Implementing New Technology” at the Technology & Maintenance Council Fall Meeting in Orlando, Florida, this week.
Deryk Powell, president and chief operating officer of technology company Velociti, noted in his opening remarks that in our rapidly evolving tech world, “trucking is at the epicenter of all new technology today, because we enable this new economy. And while there is a lot of new, scary stuff coming your way today, you cannot afford to get wound up about it. Because you are going to have to deal with it.”
Powell said his first advice when talking with fleet customers (Velociti specalizes in " technology deployment services") is to suggest they “synergize” their technology adoption efforts in order to make them more complete and easier to handle. For example, he said, if your fleet is looking at putting collision avoidance systems on your trucks, why not put them on your yard tractors and forklifts at the same time? Likewise, instead of dividing the tasks of putting different safety systems on vehicles such as electronic logging devices, in-cab camera systems, and lane-departure warning systems, treat all those initiatives as a single, unified action plan.
“That way,” he said, ...Read the rest of this story
Photo: J.J. Keller
">Photo: J.J. Keller
">With some industry observers worrying about whether the supply of electronic logging devices will meet the demand as we near the Dec. 17 deadline to install the mandatory devices, J.J. Keller & Associates announced it will make the transition earlier for fleets who want to wait until closer to the deadline.
The J.J. Keller ELD Reserve It Plan lets fleets reserve J.J. Keller ELDs with guaranteed shipment between November 1-10, 2017, and zero service fees until January 2018. The offer runs through October 31.
“Over 50% of the fleets we surveyed are waiting until November or December to switch to ELDs, or they're undecided,” said Tom Reader, director of marketing at J.J. Keller. “We created the J. J. Keller ELD Reserve It Plan to get fleets everything they need in time to make the switch and avoid violations from being out of compliance with the mandate. The fourth quarter is already a busy one for most fleets and it's easy for things to fall through the cracks.”
J.J. Keller ELDs, which are on the FMCSA's ELD registry of self-certified compliant devices, are part of J.J. Keller's Encompass Fleet Management System with ELogs, which includes an online dashboard for HOS compliance, an ELog app that's compatible with most smart devices, and service options ranging from stand-alone ELogs to full performance management. For more information visit JJKeller.com/ReserveELDs.
Related: What You Need to Know About ELD Mandate Enforcement
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How have the after-effects of Hurricane Harvey affected trucking? FTR has quantified the numbers, gauging the impact on the overall trucking market and the Texas and Houston markets in particular.
During the first week, almost 10% of all U.S. trucking was affected in some manner. That number jumps to near 100% for the Gulf Coast region west of the Mississippi. After a month, the numbers will ease but still remain significant. The largest effects were regionalized, but transportation managers across the entire U.S. were scrambling.
As we moved into the second week of the Hurricane Harvey drama, we saw three things happening, all reflecting supply chains and trucking operations thrown out of normal routines by this long and powerful storm.
Volumes fell more in the seven days after the end of the storm than at the height of the storm.Inbound rates were up, as truckers were reluctant to go into this risky environment, even though there were more outbound spot loads than inbound.The Truckstop.com Market Demand Index (MDI) jumped 10% and prices jumped 3%. This is just what one would expect when a storm takes 5-10% of trucks out of normal patterns.Looking to RecoveryIt's apparent that people are working very hard in Houston, because the spot market trucking statistics are showing strong positive moves, in some cases to levels above pre-storm benchmarks.
Beginning with day 13 (Tuesday, Sept. 5), the recovery clearly had started. Outbound volumes in Houston were up for the week and would have been back at pre-storm levels if not for Labor Day. Outbound prices still lagged pre-storm levels. The outbound volume situation was very good news, because it implies that the Houston manufacturing sector, so important for U.S. fuel and chemical supplies, had begun to roar back to life.
On the inbound side we saw clear evidence of the beginning of ...Read the rest of this story
