I know, I know: you’ve heard the mantra “Always wear your seat belt” since you graduated driver’s ed umpteen years ago. Problem is, many truck drivers still DON’T wear them – about 41%, according to figures compiled by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) last year.

Yet it’s the lowly seat belt that’s the final line of defense in not only preventing a driver from getting killed in an accident, but also reducing the severity of any injuries sustained in a wreck. And all it takes is just three second – three MEASELY seconds – to buckle up, thus vastly increasing your chances (and that of your drivers) to not only survive a crash but suffer fewer injuries as well.

Farmers Insurance just completed an in-depth study of seat belt effectiveness using 2006 fatal crash data compiled by the U.S. Department of Transportation to back this up – and while it looked mainly at car and light-truck occupant stats, the lessons for truck drivers are still really profound, I believe.

“Once again, we find strong statistical evidence that seat belts remain the most important protection for the driver,” noted Kevin Mabe, staff economist at Farmers, who headed up the insurance carrier’s analysis. “We found that when a driver used a seat belt, the odds of a fatality dropped nearly 70% compared to a driver who did not.”

Mabe said Farmer’s analysis incorporates a logistic econometric model with forty-one variables, accounting for factors such as road and traffic conditions at the time of the fatal accident, location and time, accident events, vehicle specifics, driver demographics, and safety features. “Controlling for these additional external factors allows us to more precisely isolate the degree to which safety belts save lives,” he explained.

Several other factors showed significance in decreasing the odds of a driver’s death, Mabe said. For example, rear-end collisions proved less deadly than head-on or “T-bone” collisions. Larger vehicles, such as trucks, sport utility vehicles (SUVs), and vans, appeared to protect the driver better than a typical automobile due to their larger size (Duh!). Dry roads, in contrast with wet roads, decrease the odds of a fatality by over 10%, suggesting that drivers should use caution when navigating slick roads.

Other factors increased danger on the roads. “Nighttime and winter driving tended to produce more deadly accidents, and drivers should continue to exercise additional caution,” Mabe noted. “Certain accident events, such as rollovers, ejections, and vehicle fires, greatly reduce the survivability in an accident. Motorcycle accidents showed remarkably increased mortality rates compared to other vehicles.”

Not all factors proved predictive, he stressed. While driver height and weight appeared to have little influence on the outcome of the accident, age plays an important part. “Older drivers, as well as young new drivers, have an increased risk. But in the end, a driver’s three-second choice to ‘buckle up’ will more than double his or her chances to survive a severe accident.”

Those odds are the kind you can live with.

“I’m going to rise today/and change this world.” –from the song “Rise Today” by Alter Bridge.

Couple weeks back, the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) made a pretty bold move in my estimation to beef up commercial vehicle safety: asking all the major North American heavy truck manufacturers to make anti-rollover devices standard equipment on all new Class 8 trucks.

Right now, two heavy truck OEMs – Volvo and Mack – have made one of the three currently existing anti-rollover systems standard equipment on all their new Class 8 trucks, with the others offering anti-rollover technology as an option. The CTA’s CEO, David Bradley, stressed that while such technology won’t prevent every rollover, it’ll go a long way to eliminating the majority of them.

“Of course, any stability system cannot prevent all situations and is in no way a replacement for good drivers and good driving practices,” he said in a written statement. “However, CTA is convinced that the current anti-rollover technology performs well with all types of tractor-trailer configurations and should become part of all standard new vehicle packages.”

The CTA started hammering on this issue after a spate of rollover truck crashes in central Canada this past summer that caused fatalities, serious injuries and/or highway shutdowns in some cases. “Whether all or some of these rollovers were the fault of the truck driver, or more than likely the fault of a car driver who cut off a truck, does not change the fact that our members feel from experience that the truck anti-rollover devices currently available for installation on new tractors can help prevent some of these incidents and is therefore pretty cheap insurance,” said Bradley.

He also noted that the next step is to consider wider use of electronic stability control or ESC on commerical trucks, which adds directional control benefits to the anti-rollover package. The U.S. government is mandating ESC for all new cars and light trucks by 2011 and Canada is considering whether to create a similar light-vehicle mandate as well. Bradley said that, while neither the U.S. nor Canadian governments has yet made a move to mandate the technology on heavy trucks, regulatory options are being investigated.

Before fleets on this side of the border start grousing about the cost of complying with such mandates – and fleets will pay extra bucks to cover the cost of making anti-rollover technology a standard feature, make no mistake about that – consider some of these numbers.

When Volvo made Bendix’s Electronic Stability Program (ESP) a standard feature on all of its VN and VT Class 8 tractors, it added about $995 to the base price of both models. In terms of dollars, what is that $995 for an ESP system really buying? Volvo crunched the numbers and the results are pretty compelling. The average cost of a single rollover is $109,000: $50,000 to repair the vehicle, $20,000 in cargo claims, $10,000 for towing, $10,000 for clean-up, $10,000 in down time, and $10,000 for higher insurance premiums

At a 5% profit margin, a fleet would have to generate $2 million in revenue to pay for one rollover accident, Volvo calculated – so paying $995 is pretty cheap by comparison.

Of course, this is just the start of the debate – the CTA is calling only for voluntary action right now. But it’s worth noting that this isn’t a government agency or safety group calling for this – these are the fleets themselves, the folks who’ll have to pony up the bucks for this safety technology. It’s good to see this kind of support shaping up for safety systems.

I’m going to do something a little different today – I’m turning my blog over to someone else, that person being Jerry Osteryoung, the Jim Moran Professor of Entrepreneurship in the College of Business at Florida State University.

Osteryoung is also the director of the entrepreneurship program at FSU and executive director of the Jim Moran Institute of Global Entrepreneurship. What all that “high falutin” stuff means is Osteryoung is devoted to teaching people about the guts of business – any business, actually. He writes constantly on every aspect of business, from how to ease new employees into the workplace to gaining the financial know-how to make sure your chosen business runs correctly and profitably.

That’s critical stuff, especially for small fleets and owner-operators alike. For if you can’t correctly tell if you are losing or making money, you’re going to find yourself in an awful lot of trouble very, very fast.

Now, I am NOT math or financial wizard (My wife, the math major and M.B.A. holder, keeps the family finances on track – without her, I’d be lost) so that’s why I am not going to even begin to go down the accounting path. I’m going to let Dr. Osteryoung take you there, as he’s a lot more surefooted than I am. I’ve also had the great pleasure of meeting him in person and let me tell you THAT is a real treat – he’s smart, funny, and most of all makes you THINK about all things business, because he sticks with the “King’s English” and doesn’t rely on acronyms or indecipherable phraseology.

For your information, he can be reached by e-mail at jostery@comcast.net or by phone at 850-644-3372.

Dr. Osteryoung, take it away:

“One of the problems that I continually see in both my students at FSU and in entrepreneurs is the lack of understanding of financial statements. These are the core elements of any successful business and, honestly, it is almost impossible to manage a business without a complete understanding of them.

Now, the majority of my entrepreneurship students go out of their way not to understand numbers as they are marketing driven or “big picture” folks. It is my job to get them excited about entrepreneurial finance, which at times can be quite a challenge. Grade motivation does wonders for them; however, it is much harder with entrepreneurs.

I was meeting with a very nice man who had been an entrepreneur for over 30 years. Somehow he had been able to exist with very little knowledge about his financials. When I met with him to look over his financials, he knew that they were not right, but he had no idea how to make them correct. The most incredulous thing was that his accountant (a CPA) either saw no problem in how the financial statements were constructed (negative accounts receivable) or did not really care how the firm was doing.

This entrepreneur had no idea what his financial statements were telling him, and his only measure of financial viability was whether he had enough money in the bank. He thought this method had served him well, but he quickly realized that something was not right when I began asking him how different parts of his business were doing.

Just because you have money in your checking account or can make payroll does not mean that your business is doing well. I have seen countless businesses have strong cash flow one month because they were collecting on the accounts receivable; yet, no cash flow the following month because they were unaware that they were losing money until it was too late. Having money in the bank, just does not tell you how the firm is doing today or how it is going to do in the future. The only way to really understand this is to have monthly financial statements and to really, really understand what they mean.

What are some critical things to look at when evaluating financial statements? First, you need to understand what your gross and net margins are. Gross margin is just gross profit divided by sales, and net profit margin is just net profit divided by sales. Net profit margin tells you the net amount of profits you made on every dollar of sales.

You should be able to compare both of these figures against your industry information. For example, if your gross profit margin is 20% and the industry average is 40%, you are either selling your product too cheaply or paying too much for your products. With regard to net profit margin, I encourage firms to get as close to 10% as possible.

The next critical thing to look at is your expenses. I encourage each entrepreneur to go through all of their expenses line by line to make sure that they are what they should be. So many entrepreneurs just have no clue. When I have them do this drill, they wonder why their expenses are so high. If you do not watch out for your financial well being, who will?

The other thing with which you should be vitality concerned is the amount of debt your business has. A little bit of debt is fine, but too much debt could lead to the demise of the firm. Debt – both interest and principal – must be paid off, no matter what. In the case that you cannot pay it, the bank has the option of forcing you into bankruptcy. Obviously, this situation would not be good! Generally, depending on the industry, I recommend that firms keep their debt under 60% of total assets.

Looking after your financial assets is your job. You must have an understanding of financial statements to be successful. Now go out there and make sure that you understand your financial statements as they are so critical to your business.”

It’s no secret that diesel prices are reaching new highs. The real unknown here, though, is how the trucking industry as a whole can deal with this huge and ever-expanding bulge in its bottom line for the long term.

I mean, when oil prices hit $75 a barrel in the wake of Hurricane Katrina back in 2005, you would’ve thought the end of the world arrived from the way the general media covered the resulting run-up in diesel and gasoline prices. Today, however, the price per barrel is near the $100 mark, with diesel and gasoline pump prices hitting all-time records — above even those set in 1981, adjusting for inflation, when the nation sat mired in a major recession.

On average in the U.S. now, diesel fuel costs just over $3.44 per gallon, with the pump numbers going higher and lower in different parts of the country. Truckers in Wisconsin report $3.58 per gallon — one lucky trucker who phoned into “The Loading Dock” trucking news show on Sirius Satellite Radio’s channel 147 scored $3.42 in California of all places (where fuel prices are usually way above the national average).

The price run up of the last few weeks happened so fast than many carriers and owner-operators alike couldn’t revise their fuel surcharges upwards quickly enough, thus having to eat many dollars during the lag time. And with fuel representing 25% of a carrier’s bottom line operating cost on averge, according to the American Trucking Association (ATA), a lag in fuel surcharge adjustment adds up to big money in a hurry.

Just look at the industry’s escalating fuel bill over the last several years. In 2004, trucking paid $65.9 billion for fuel, according to ATA’s statistics. By 2005, that bill climbed to $87.7 billion — a ONE YEAR spike of $19.8 billion! In 2006, fuel costs jumped to $103.3 billion — another double-digit spike, this time to the tune of $15.6 billion — and now trucking is on track to spend $110.1 billion on fuel in 2007. IF we hold steady at that $3.44 per gallon average, mind you.

Talking to truckers on the air, you can plainly hear their frustration. Owner-operators that spent $400 to $500 a week on fuel seven years ago now face a staggering $1,600 to $1,700 weekly fuel bill — even if they are getting a solid 6.5 mpg on the highway. That type of expense would blow a hole in anybody’s wallet quickly — especially if freight revenues are slack, like they are now. And it’s no wonder that the talk is turning (yet again) to holding a nationwide trucker’s strike — this time being called for Jan. 3 through 8 in 2008.

What can be done? It’s beyond obvious that the U.S. lacks anything that even remotely can be labeled an energy security strategy — we’ve gone through nothing but cycle after cycle of fuel price spikes since 1999, when diesel cost (can you believe it?) 90 cents a gallon. Yes, that number is from the late 20th century folks … though it seems like a lifetime ago.

Making your trucks as fuel efficient as possible (adding aerodynamic roof and fuel tank fairings, reducing engine idling, making sure ALL 18 tires are properly inflated, running the engine in the ’sweet spot’ on the highway) is of course the standard reply. Reducing out-of-route mileage, using a fuel buying strategy, and other management tactics are all there for the taking, too. But the reality is trucks need to roll — and petroleum is really the only fuel of choice, representing some 97% of what’s burned in truck tanks today. Until we get some alternatives out there in some big numbers, we’re stuck with petroleum — and all the price hikes that go with it.

It’s a study in contrasts, the truck engine production process today. On the one hand you have the foundry: the dark, smokey place where metal is melted in giant pots to create all the components that going into making an engine. On the other is the production process itself — today a place where robots increasingly hold sway, where the light is soft, the air clean, and the floor scrubbed to high polished sheen.

Rapidly disapearing are the clangs and clashes, shouts and yells, all the sounds that represent the controlled chaos of the old production line. Now automated guided vehicles — AGVs for short — silently but surefootedly take each engine from station to station where humans use computer controls to guide them in the construction process. The milling of engine blocks, too, has changed, with humans only monitoring the robot’s progress from outside a sound-dampening protective box that also serves to keep the air free of pollution.

These are the contrasts of engine factories today that I’ve seen, from Volvo’s powertrain facility in Hagerstown, Maryland, and Detroit Diesel’s factory in Redford, Michigan all the way across the pond into Daimler AG’s truck engine plant in Mannheim, Germany.

And these factories produce ever larger quantities of goods with fewer and fewer people. Take Mannheim, for example: it spat out 410,000 engines and 107,000 tonnes worth of castings in 2006 and should equal that tally in 2007. Yet it only needed some 4,400 people to do it. And these are workers that are no mere cogs on the production line anymore, more number than name. They submitted 19,000 suggestions in 2006 — roughly 3.7 per person — of which about 55% were adopted. The savings from those suggestions? About 5.3 million Euros — nearly $10 million in U.S. at today’s exchange rate. That’s pretty impressive if you ask me and it’s not surprising, either, when you learn that employees get a cut of those savings in the form of bonuses for their suggestions.

Still, it’s an almost otherworldly collision of milieu when you tour engine foundries and production lines. In the foundries, you still feel like you’ve stumbled through a crack in time and space into Mordor in Middle Earth, with the heat, sparks, and rank smells assaulting your senses. You can almost see Orcs amid the haze, laboring over this almost unearthly alchemy that turns solid metal into bright orange fiery liquid, then into the common engine parts truckers use day in and day out.

And then you leap forward into the future — something right out of an Arthur C. Clarke novel — on the production line, where robots do most of the work. They spare the humans the tiresome and at times physically wearying chore of routine component installation — something that must done right every single time with exact precision so the end user gets an engine that delivers power, fuel economy, and long durable life.

It’s an interesting mix of the old and new, but one designed purposefully to extract the utmost in efficiency, capability, and longevity from what was once hunks of inert ore sitting under the earth. And its one where the tools and techniques to do it will only get refined with an even sharper edge in the years ahead.

“Keep on rolling; Keep on rolling; Roll with the changes.” — REO Speedwagon

On my recent vacation in Ireland, we stopped in to play golf at the New Forest golf club in Westmeath, a little south of Mullingar in the Midlands. In talking with the starter, I discovered New Forest, a public course (something of a rarity these days in any country), encountered something of a problem during construction: an ancient stone-walled orchard, located smack dab in the middle of the whole works. Historical preservation ensured that the builders couldn’t touch the 10-foot walls — even though the orchard’s trees were long dead and overgrown with vines.

What to do? Well, the course’s designers turned the space INSIDE the walls into the ninth hole. Rather than fit the topography to their plan, they adjusted their plan to fit the topography — creating a one-of-a-kind golfing experience in the process. That’s what adapting to change is all about.

Something similar is going on in trucking, too (minus the tee boxes, fairways, bunkers, and greens, of course) as fleets large and small are adjusting themselves to new realities in the freight market. These adjustments aren’t exactly new, either: the late J.B. Hunt started making them back in the late 1980s when he began his famous experiment with intermodalism — an experiment only now starting to benefit the company that bears his name. He could clearly see the profit potential that others didn’t in working with the railroads to provide joint freight service — buying rail capacity at wholesale prices, then sell it bundled with his truck capacity at retail prices, keeping his costs low as his trucks didn’t have to run a lot of miles or burn a lot of fuel.

Now, Hunt’s first stab at intermodalism wasn’t a rousing success — not in the least that railroads were considered anathema to truckers back then, as both were such die-hard competitors — so he pulled back and waited. In fact, he’d pretty much retired by the time intermodalism finally came into its own for his fleet — along with dedicated contract carriage services — and none too soon.

The recent falloff in tonnage and rates in the truckload sector would have hurt the J.B. Hunt of old, but since it’s worked to adapt to the changes in the freight business — by diversifying its services and changing its freight mix — the carrier stayed on an even keel. Though net income fell in the third quarter to a hair over $50 million, J.B. Hunt remained profitable — bagging $892 million in revenue, 4% more than the same period last year, which was a boom time for freight.

“Our intermodal business clearly represents the foundation of our earnings resiliency and demonstrates that our company is no longer driven by the cyclicality typical of a truckload model,” said Kirk Thompson, J. B. Hunt’s president and CEO. The carrier added in its third quarter earnings report that its intermodal load count increased 23% over the same quarter 2006 with significant growth coming in shorter haul lanes primarily in the Eastern half of the U.S. as customers continue to convert over-the-road truck freight to the more economical intermodal service.

That’s what rolling with the punches and adpating to change in the trucking business is all about — and it’s something we’re only going to see more of in the future, I predict.

It’s a ubiquitous sight that greeted me this morning — a squat concrete mixer truck, obviously fully loaded and heading for a job, inching ever so slowly up Old Keene Mill Road (well below the posted 45 mph speed limit) through greater Springfield, VA. I think to myself, hey, it’s rush hour and people are going to be whipping around this guy at ninety miles an hour, flipping him off along the way: we’ll be lucky if an accident doesn’t occur.

Except …

First, the driver of this medium-duty International mixer truck (the drum painted in red, white, and blue stripes, just like the American flag) has his yellow hazards on — and in the misty morning gloom, those flashing yellow lights give all the drivers coming up behind him in the right lane ample time to psss on the left.

Second, at every turn lane or bus lane on the right hand side, he moves over to let traffic pass, again giving time for commuters to get around him safely. He makes smooth lane changes (and it’s no wonder — with the concrete drum turning, he’s no doubt worried that a sharp manuever may cause a rollover) and doesn’t drive in typical “run fast downhill, creep slow uphill” mode, giving everyone the ability to pass, regardless of the roadway incline.

This is professional driver courtesy in action — courtesy no doubt completely overlooked by the hundreds of morning commuters plowing past him well above the speed limit. Yet if he (or she — I couldn’t tell from my angle) didn’t drive their concrete mixer in this fashion, the hue and cry by way of car horns, flashing headlights, and muffled epithets would’ve been hard to miss. But all of that got short circuited by a truck driver taking pains to make his journey less of a hassle for others.

Wish I knew your name or that of your company, my friend — for your efforts, trivial as they may seem to other drivers, did not go unnoticed. Keep up the good work!

A reporter named Patrick O’Leary from South Africa asked an interesting question at the recent “Shaping Future Transportation” meeting put on Daimler AG at its headquarters campus in Stuttgart, Germany.

Andreas Renschler, head of Daimnler’s truck division, commented that the debate over the feasibility of alternative fuels — biodiesel, ethanol, natural gas, fuel cells, etc. — for commerical trucks wasn’t based on technology but on politics. In his view — and that of other OEMs — alternative fuels and hybrid systems could be quickly deployed to make drastic reductions in petroleum use worldwide. But the political will to do so, to Renschler’s mind, still isn’t there.

That’s when Pat O’Leary raised his hand. “Look, you’re a big company, your competitor Volvo is a big company. Why don’t you use that political muscle and kick ass?” O’Leary’s question got a lot of laughs (and well before his comment got translated — looks like some phrases are universally understood!) but raises an interesting point. The technology is here and the fuels are here. Why aren’t we using them?

OK, yes, everything noted above — hybrids included — costs way more than traditional diesel-powered trucks, even ones upgraded with new low-emission technology. The fuels themselves all have drawbacks in terms of less energy content per gallon when compared to gasoline and diesel. And when you talk about ethanol and biodiesel, that opens up conflict with the food supply. And what happens if we experience massive drought or crop failures? There goes the fuel supply, for no one in their right mind will stand by and watch corn go to ethanol plants when people are starving.

Still, all that considered, OEMs have developed an impressive array of options for commercial fleets, ones centered around vehicle application. Hybrids do very well in stop-and-go, urban delivery, and bus operations, while natural gas seems to be a good fit for refuse fleets and buses as well. Long haul trucks can easily switch over to fuels made from biomass (plants, organic wastes, you name it) as the diesel engine can really run on just about anything as long as the fuel quality is consistent.

Yet here we are, again facing high fuel prices as oil inches closer to $100 a barrel, again cursing OPEC under our collective breath, and again wondering just how much of these oil riches Iran is using to speed up its nuclear aspirations.

Not only do we need the political will to make the shift to alternative fuels — yes, this means mandates — we need the political smarts to do it. We can’t leave loopholes whereby petroluem giants can drop a pint of soybean oil into one of their million gallon petroleum tanks and then get to call it biodiesel. We can’t just stick it to the transportation like we’ve done with emissions — tax credits, discounts, incentives, whatever you call them, are needed to get people to make the switch. We can’t stand back and let truckstops figure out if they can afford to build biodiesel refueling sites or not — we need a national (if not international) strategy to build the refueling infrastructure necessary to support alternative fuels.

Sure, we all know how politcians today are gumming up the works when we try to change course on a variety of issues. The U.S. Congress especially is infamous for loading up bills with earmarks (worthless pork) meant to curry favor and protect their jobs. But energy security is serious, serious business — the U.S. has its jugular exposed on this issue in a huge way. And it’s not impossible to fix this, etiher.

Look at Brazil: that nation’s vehicles run almost solely on ethanol now, generated from its vast supplies of sugar cane. Sure, the U.S. is a way, WAY bigger nut to crack — we don’t grow nearly the amount of sugar cane, their climate is far different than ours — but why can’t we cut our petroleum use by half using such alternatives? In my neck of the woods, for example, Washington D.C., is witnessing an explosion of hybrid car sales. Why? Because hybrid owners get to use the special carpool lanes during rush hour — without carpooling. That simple fact — not the fuel savings, not the lower emission benefits, not even tax credits — generated this massive switch.

It’ll be complicated, require lifestyle changes, and will generate all kinds of attempts at loopholes and opt-outs and other nonsense. But the time is here to start making the switch — it’s a political issue now, so we’ve got to put some muscle into this to get it done.

It’s a gray, cold dawn in Heidelberg, Germany – the air is heavy with impending rain and the few people up and about at this hour move quickly by on its weathered cobblestone streets, heading to work or to class.

A town of some 140,000 souls, Heidelberg (an adaptation of “Heidelbeerenberg,” which is German for “Blueberry Mountain) sits nestled in the steep Neckar river valley and is home to the renowned University of Heidelberg, founded in 1386. Its narrow, winding roads and dense construction hark back to its roots in the ancient world, first as home to a Celtic fortress in the fifth century B.C., followed by a Roman one in 40 A.D. until the Germans pushed them out in 260 A.D.

Today, however, Heidelberg is more medieval in physical appearance than anything else, with large castles dotting the hillsides, its hotels, shops, and cathedrals seemingly frozen in time – awaiting only knights on horseback to reclaim it. Yet this particular morning is given over not to the horse, but its successor, the truck – and they are everywhere, large and small, the ubiquitous tool of modern life.

Refrigerated trucks from Mueller Inc. and Perry Wilkens Transport are stocking up the bakeries and restaurants as I wander down the street from the Hotel Zum Ritter St. George. Sprinters and other vans come and go, leaving bundles of newspapers and magazines in their wake.

Then, ever so slowly, a phalanx of refuse trucks – painted bright neon orange and white – begin wending their way up the narrow stone streets, collecting trash, recycled paper products, and food waste in orderly succession. The garbage crews – all wearing brash orange neon work suits, making them look like astronauts preparing for a mission – silently move in concert to quickly empty the many trash bins perched haphazardly on the sidewalks.

Now and then, a bus slides by, the bark of their diesel engines muffled by the mist and gloom, carrying passengers more asleep than awake to the university (which employs 18% of Heidelberg’s residents) or to one of the town’s many hotels, eateries, and shops (as the hospitality industry employs 81.8% of the population).

Heidelberg is so pristine, its ancient visage perfectly preserved, thanks in large measure to its very lack of heavy industry. Because it has no factories and isn’t a major transportation hub, the Allies didn’t bomb it into rubble during World War II – a fate visited on the city of Mannheim, just down the road. Few tractor trailers come here to Heidelberg, for its streets are too narrow – here, the medium- and light-duty truck hold sway, puttering away at their tasks, taken for granted by the people they serve.

The wind picks up slightly and I feel the mist beginning to coalesce into raindrops. I cinch my jacket a little tighter, turn, and duck back inside the warm lobby of the Ritter — leaving this city and its trucks to search for a warm cup of coffee.

So Emanuel Groll and I are making our way around Daimler AG’s test track at its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, in the compnay’s new Mercedes Benz 7.5 ton Atego diesel-electric hybrid truck. Best thing is that Groll isn’t some test engineer plucked from the ranks to play test driver for the day — oh no. He’s the guy Daimler put in charge of making this truck become a reality — the chief engineer himself — and though it handles just like any other medium-duty you’ve ever operated, Groll told me making the Atego hybrid come to life was far from easy.

That’s because the parrallel hybrid Atego marries a chassis and diesel engine built by Daimler with a hybrid drive system produced by Mitsubishi Fuso — a well-known Japanese truck maker in which Daimler owns a controlling stake. Putting those pieces together proved hugely difficult, Groll conceded to me: for starters, the medium-duty hybrid used in Japan uses hyrdaulic brakes, whereas the European Atego has air brakes.

And the brakes are key to the fuel savings one gets from a hybrid, as the system is designed to ‘capture’ braking energy, then re-use it to ‘launch’ the vehicle. That’s but one reason why hybrids like the Atego can get between a 30% to 40% improvement in fuel economy. “The mechanic integration of all of this is not too hard — it’s putting together the electronics controlling everyhting that proved challenging,” Groll explained to me in flawless English. “It took us two years to get all of the components to ‘talk’ to each other correctly.”

DHL is going to get the first Atego hybrid prototypes in the spring of 2008 for some detailed real world tests — not only measuring fuel savings but maintenance savings, too, as the regenerative braking process should help extend brake pad life. “We haven’t had the chance to accumulate that data ourselves, so it will be interesting to see what DHL discovers,” Groll told me.

The Atego is but one of many alternative vehicles Daimler put on display for some 200 journalists visiting from 28 countries this week — garbage trucks running on natural gas, fuel cell powered city buses, diesel-electric hybrid buses, etc. Riding in them, you really don’t notice anything too different, though — less noise of coruse and none of that pungent diesel odor. But aside from that, the ride and handling is no different from their diesel-only counterparts.

Underneath the hood, though, it all gets complicated — and in terms of keeping them on the road, maintenance is going to be the real issue in the long run, I think. Fuel savings will be there, which should help offset the higher costs of hybrids, but if they prove too complicated or require more downtime for maintenance, money saved from lower fuel bills may go back out the window.

Yet this is all occuring at time when we are staring $100 per barrel oil in the face — with fears that it may go higher as 2008 dawns upon us. So, even with the complications, medium-duty hybrids like the Atego and others from International, Kenworth, and Peterbilt may end up being the best money-saving option for fleets down the road — and sooner than we think.