The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say.
– from “Mark Twain’s Notebook” by Samuel Langhorne Clemens
All of us here at FleetOwner are rather pumped having just learned the editors and designers on staff will soon receive no less than six “Azbee” awards for editorial excellence from the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASPBE). Founded in 1964, ASBPE is a professional association for editors and writers employed in the business, trade and specialty press (or in what we unromantically call today “the media.”)
Four are national awards: Feature Article (”Fuel: Diesel & Beyond,” Aug. ‘07); Special Supplement (our special annual “13th” issue Can You Survive? , ” Nov. ‘07); Annual Buyers Guide (”Annual Specs & Buyers Guide,” Oct. ‘07), and Front Cover Design (”Annual Specs & Buyers Guide,” Oct. ‘07).
The other two awards are for the Northeast Region, which includes all publications based in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. FleetOwner is being recognized for the categories of Editorial/Editor’s Letter (”Editor’s Page,” July and Aug. 2007), and Front Cover Design (”New Models,” July 2007).
In any line of work it’s always nice to receive the equivalent of a standing ovation for your efforts but it is ever more satisfying when the applause comes from your professional peers.
We daresay this recognition should also please our readers. The multiple national Azbees in particular reflect the impact the combined efforts of the entire editorial and design team delivers not just now and then, but issue after issue, month after month in print, and day after day online.
Yes, OK, we like to win awards as much as the next guy.
But above all, we take pride in knowing what we do is all about you.
People around my age– let’s be kind and call them late-stage baby boomers– and definitely those who are older may recall a phenomenon from their misspent youth or further back in their carefree childhood: The Gas War.
Back when “service stations” (how quaint a description is that?) gave away embossed drinking glasses and other consumer detritus to lure customers in to tank up, proprietors sometimes sought to drum up sales a tad more dramatically by engaging in a little friendly price war with neighboring stations. Suddenly, gas wasn’t 30 cents a gallon, it was 29, then 28 and oh my gosh, weren’t those the good old days for anyone with wheels to take them places?
I know it’s not nearly the same thing but now in this summer of our discontent made ugly winter by this fuel crisis, I say we can take heart in a wonder of the wonderful worldwide web: a feature on the MSN Autos site that pulls up retail gas prices by zip code!
Yes, this will be of little use to centrally fueled fleets but it may come in handy for anyone managing a fleet, especially of gas jobs, who does not have a fuel card or other such program in place to secure discount pricing. Regardless, it should be of great service to anyone out there seeking to gas up a personal vehicle for as little as possible without wasting gas by riding around looking for the lowest price.
Before I forget, a tip of the editorial eyeshade to my pal Alicia Hinds, who alerted me to this site via an email she sent out this morning to a group of friends.
OK, on to the details: Once you get to the MSN page hosting the Local Gas Prices feature, you scroll down just a bit and plug in any zip code.
And presto, up pops a map and a nice long list of stations with their addresses and the retail price posted for each grade of gasoline as well as diesel that they sell. It could not be any easier and judging by the couple of stations I passed on the way into work today and the prices reported for my home zip code, it is accurate.
According to the site, every night MSN Autos receives pricing data compiled by theOil Price Information Service (OPIS) from over 90,000 gas stations. One thing I found interesting was, at least in the case of my home zip, was that the results– 29 of them– were fantastic but they actually spilled into several neighboring zip codes although all stations were a short drive from each other.
So, party like it’s 1968 (click below for how) and find yourself if not cheap gas, at least the cheapest gas!
As someone with no dog in this fight except for journalistic endeavor, what fascinates me the most about the big Caterpillar-Navistar deal, word of which broke this morning, is that among other weightier things, it means the death of one Cat come 2010– the heavy-duty on-highway Caterpillar truck engine in North America– and the birth of another– the Caterpillar severe-service truck.
That’s right! A Cat truck–how cool is that? Well, pretty cool to yours truly anyhow, who entered this business shortly after the Brockway Husky was put to sleep and shortly before the fabled, hand-built Marmon of Garland, TX, fame went to the great truckstop in the sky. And I am sure among my elders still scribbling about trucks there are a few who can rattle off many more names of other dearly departed truck marques.
Yes, it is good to hear that another truck nameplate will be soon be around for us to track in FleetOwner’s annual July New Models issue. .. coming soon to mailboxes everywhere and here online!
I will pause here to salute Cat for all it has done for American truckers as a purveyor of on-highway truck engines.
It has indeed been a good long run for the truck engine guys in Peoria and they have every reason to be proud of their accomplishments as they helped move the state of the art in diesel trucking forward.
I’ll close by recalling one of the first big events I covered as a trucking journalist– the trend-settting “Cat Economy Challenge” of 1981.
That nationwide MPG competition lasted for months and engaged both fleets and owner-operators in a huge contest for prizes and bragging rights. I’m sure it helped sell tons of truck engines.
Click below to enjoy a tribute to one of Cat’s legendary driver-trainers– Phil Hook- whom I first met at the Challenge:
But the Challenge also helped sell an entire industry on how much fuel, and thus money, can be saved just by learning how to drive a truck in a manner that made finely engineered engines perform to their maximum ability.
So here’s to you, Cat: a tip of my very oldest, circa 1981 “gimme cap,” which kinda looks like this one.
–chorus of Weezer’s “Only in Dreams,” words and music by Rivers Cuomo
I’ve never listened to the rock band Weezer so I can’t say whether I have missed anything. But I can honestly say I was touched by the lines above when I went a-googling the lyrics of the band, which was the hands-down favorite of my late colleague Terry Nguyen.
My search was for a kind of link if you will back to Terry so I could somehow, hopefully fittingly, commemerate his tragic death one year ago June 1st and, above all, to illuminate the short yet shining life he led.
Then it struck me that the best way to recall Terry at this time would be to share with you some of his own words.
The passage below was penned as part of an essay Terry wrote in 2007 to win one of the Young Leaders Scholarships presented by the American Society of Business Publications Editors to promising young journalists. He won that prestigious honor but died shortly before it was to be bestowed.
Please pause for a moment and reflect on what this wonderful young man, just 27 at his passing, had to say when he recalled an incident that helped inspire him to be a journalist:
“I vividly remember at UConn [The University of Connecticut] working on a story that had moved me more than any other. A music student was performing a practice recital in front of her classmates when she collapsed onstage and died shortly thereafter. I learned that she played the trumpet with a prosthetic arm. I spoke with her friends, her teachers, university officials, and her father — who at times fought through tears to speak to me. For obvious reasons, it was an extremely sensitive topic, and I got no sleep the night my article was sent to the printer.
“I bring this particular story up because I learned very early in my career the value of journalism. What I wrote has an impact on how a deceased person will be remembered, and that article is most likely sitting in a scrapbook right now. This example illustrates why I believe journalism is truly a public service — one that’s worth preserving with integrity at whatever cost.”
It seems like just yesterday I was first introduced to the Modec– an electric truck headed to the U.S. from England– by a rather eccentric and yet altogether fitting indoor test drive.
The Modec gets its good looks from its mother– the London taxi cab!
I took my silent spin in a Modec back in February at the National Truck Equipment Assn. (NTEA) Work Truck Show in Atlanta and my write-up ran in our April print edition but may be read online here.
At the NTEA show, the chairman of Coventry-based Modec Limited, Jamie Lord Borwick, stated that the OEM, whose roots are in the manufacture of London’s iconic black cabs, was exploring its options but gave no definitive time frame for when it might enter the truck market here.
Yet now I hear tell from William Doelle, director of business development for the young truck maker’s U.S. operation, that “in part owing to the favorable comments from journalists, and our winning the innovative product of the year [award] at the Work Truck Show, we have moved up our U.S. launch date… We are going to launch a select fleet of 50 Modecs– or more– in Washington DC starting in January of 2009.”
Like so many other things– good and otherwise– occurring anew in modern-day America, it’s happening first in the Golden State. Four-buck-a-gallon gasoline, that’s what.
Now, hold on, I know the rocketing cost of fuel is having a far bigger impact on truckers.
No matter how many times good scouts in the “mainstream” media, not to mention trucking advocates, point out the suffering of truckers and how the ridiculously high cost of diesel is boosting the prices all Americans pay for consumer goods, nothing will grab the attention of the Average Joe and Jane like forking over a C-Note every time they’ve gotta gas up their own four wheels. If that happens enough, may be more voters will vote this Fall and may be more voters will think long and hard about who they will vote for– this Fall and for a long, long time to come. One can hope, anyway.
This and a buck-eighty-five will get a four-wheeler filled up… and buy a cup of coffee.
I don’t catch him every night but it seems every time lately that he has started off a broadcast on the high cost of fuel he has done so by referencing right off the bat how hard-hit truckers are and then reiterates how what they are paying for diesel impacts all of us at the grocery and every other store.
I have heard Mr. Williams described pretty much as a self-made and self-effacing regular guy out of New Jersey. The Garden State is a trucking state for sure, so may be that explains it. Or may be he drove a truck once upon a time or has some truckers in his family tree.
Whatever the provenance of his informed view of trucking, it pleases me no end that at least one member of the much maligned Fourth Estate– outside the Trucking Press Corps, that is– cannot be accused of exercising an automatic bias against trucking.
NBC’s Brian Williams: He’s not all wet about trucking.
In the very early ’80s, yours truly was dispatched to Vegas (back when the town still seemed to have a Rat Packer or two floating around) for a very razz-ma-tazz roll-out of Isuzu commercial trucks in the U.S.
Now the thing is I can’t recall whether the work trucks or the cars, pickups and SUVs (sold by a separate division) got here first but what I remember the best about the truck intro was a very slick video Isuzu ran. It emphasized the firm’s long and fabled automotive history and that the company name was correctly pronounced “Eee-zoo-sue,” NOT “Eye-zoo-sue,” which seems to be what many truckers prefer.
Well, you say “Isuzu” and I say “Isuzu,” but it doesn’t change the news the Japanese automaker has announced it is pulling out of the U.S. consumer market, as revealed on autoblog.com.
However, the OEM did state it is not– I repeat, not– leaving the commercial end of the market.
“Isuzu Motors Limited has decided to end its North American SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle) new vehicle sales business as of January 31. 2009,” according to the press release posted on autoblog.com. “With this decision to end SUV operations, Isuzu’s North American business will focus on the CV [commercial vehicle] and PT [diesel engines and components] businesses.”
Of course, Isuzu has built an enviable reputation as a truck supplier here in the states and benefited from a long-term relationship with General Motors that was reconfigured last year.
As a result, Isuzu Commercial Truck of America Inc. (ICTA) is now distributing its low-cab-forward vehicles directly to both the Isuzu dealer network and GM’s network of Chevrolet and GMC medium-duty dealers.
Clearly, trucks are where the bucks are. But anyone who remembers any of the rather nifty cars Isuzu peddled here back in the day– the Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed Impulse leaps to mind– not to mention the no-nonsense Trooper SUV– may again enjoy hearing a message from their very twisted U.S. pitchman, good old Joe Isuzu:
According to The Wall Street Journal this morning, the Fed chairman has “endorsed a ‘quickly’ implemented fiscal stimulus package, saying it would complement the Fed’s efforts to provide monetary-policy insurance against an economic downturn.” The Journal also reported that in prepared testimony, Bernanke “repeated the pledge he made last week to enact ’substantive’ rate cuts if needed to counter the threat to the economy posed by fragile financial markets and weakening employment. ”
Way to go, Ben! What’s more, according to CNNMoney.com, our Lame Duck in Chief has indicated that he will support an economic stimulus package– even though it will mean making nice with the Frustrated Majority up on Capitol Hill.
On the other hand, we keep hearing that the $14-trillion– or some such unfathomable figure– U.S. economy is akin to the battleship that, no matter what harm’s way it is steaming into, cannot be turned on a dime.
Even so, there is such a thing as psyching people up. Americans both indiviudally and collectively as businesspersons are more apt to do what they can to help our economy if they feel the government is in there with them, shoulder to shoulder, trying to keep things moving at least forward.
By the way, The New York Times is running an extensive profile on Mr. Bernanke. It may be worth a look-see, if like me, you ever wonder much about how the hell things actually happen in this great, grand country of ours.
Where the money is…
SPECIAL BONUS !
Courtesy of Reuters, here is the Head Fed in Talking Head mode:
It seems only yesterday the only hybrid on any highway was a Toyota Prius or two. Now around where I live, you can see phalanxes of Priuses on any given day. On top of that, it seems everyone who makes anything that helps drive a commercial vehicle has got a hybrid offering of somes sort on the road or at least in the works.
This was driven home to me (no pun intended, honestly) recently when I got to witness an Allison Transmission “ride and drive” outside their headquarters in Indianapolis. It was not an elaborate event, at least not compared to some others held a few years back by this maker of automatic transmissions for commercial vehicles, but it was certainly geared to impressing potential customers.
There was an on-road and an off-road course so customers could experience how the automatics are designed to deliver “smooth power” no matter what the truck is doing– whether that be rolling in traffic or tackling a slope at a construction site.
Getting back to hybrids, in a chat with Steve Spurlin, recently named executive director of 3000/4000 Series & application engineering for the manufacturer, I learned that Allison is well along in fielding a full-blown hybrid electric drive system for transit buses, dubbed Ev Drive.
According to Allison, its Ev Drive can significantly enhance the performance of transit buses, suburban
coaches and articulated buses running in a variety of applications – whether stop-and-go city
traffic, operating over the road or in some combination of the two.
If hybrids can be found now in passenger cars, pickup trucks, medium-duty trucks and transit buses, how much longer till they find their way into heavy-duty rigs? Don’t better on it not happening sooner than later.
Back in the year of our nation’s Bicentennial, senior slump in the waning days of high school was relieved a bit by a substitute history teacher who apparently took great joy in teaching us Catholic school boys and girls a few select “swear words” in Chinese. To this day, I have no idea if his claims of Cantonese scholarship were true or, if so, what he taught us meant what he said it did or actually translated to something like “You are a soggy egg roll!”
Thirty-one years later, China– the People’s Republic of, that is– is still a Communist dictatorship but it has emerged as an economic force to be more than reckoned with. Certainly, we can all hope that as the more “green” rolls in the less “red” it will become. But given how the Chinese government crushed the Tiananmen Square protests back in ‘89, the day China becomes a democracy may be yet another century off.
In the meantime, one thing is damn sure: More Chinese goods– and of higher and higher value and complexity– will make their way to our shores. News reports of recalled toys have informed us that something like 90% of the toys now sold here are made in China. And a visit to any chain store or souvenir shop for that matter will clearly show that most stuff of any sort that costs less than 10 bucks is made there too.
But what many Americans don’t realize is China is also making bigger stuff for export too. Major appliances are here already– and, yes, cars are next. Consider this piece from Forbes.com about how the Chinese OEM Chery recently rolled its millionth– yes, millionth– vehicle off the assembly line.
As noted by the Forbes reporter, thanks to deals with Italy’s Fiat and Iran’s Khodro, the Chinese firm has vowed to double the number of its offshore plants in three years. And under the terms of an earlier deal, Forbes reports, Chery-made Chryslers will soon reach the U.S. and be priced “at around half of the current price of Chrysler’s cheapest model.”
It may start with bread-and-butter cars like a Chery hatchback but you can be sure Chinese-made sedans and SUVs will follow– not to mention pickups and on up the GVW scale. There could well be a Chery in your future. No matter how foreign that may sound right now.
