Commentary: Being Green Goes Beyond Low Emissions
What does it mean to say you run a “green” fleet? Is it just a matter of buying the latest trucks with hyper-compliant engines? Of spec’ing the latest in aerodynamics? It’s both, of course – and much more besides.
Rolf Lockwood
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Put another way, going green is not just a matter of tailpipe emissions, according to Kary Schaefer, general manager of marketing and strategy at Daimler Trucks North America. It’s also about efficiency and uptime, and everything stands on three pillars: safety, connectivity, and propulsion systems. The truly green fleet is one that wastes as little as possible, in every sense.
The keynote speaker at the recent Green Truck Summit in Indianapolis, Indiana, ahead of the Work Truck Show, Schaefer cited a major fleet that used to see one in every four of its trucks involved in an accident each year. After installing advanced safety systems such as stability control and collision mitigation, that ratio became one in 19. Rear-end collisions dropped dramatically. Such gains in uptime, in productivity, make a very good business case for safety, Schaefer said.
Connectivity is a means to an end, she continued, one key result being mounds of data that offer “significant opportunities” in many operational areas. And it’s not a technology restricted to highway trucks, she added. Connectivity is just as useful in the vocational world, for example in driver coaching.
The buzz around electric trucks suggests they’re being seen as the ultimate in “green” trucking, but don’t hold your breath. There are hurdles to leap, Schaefer said, in moving the idea forward: range, weight, cost, and charging.
Battery costs have been diminishing, she said, but could well go up as demand increases. The high cost of replacing a battery pack is another issue, and we’re a long way from figuring out residual values for electric trucks.
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