Trucks at Work Blog

“One concern with electric vehicles is simply the novelty of the technology. Although in many ways electric engines are less prone to breaking down, your neighborhood mechanic won’t have much experience fixing them, should the need arise.” –Bryan Hansel, CEO, Smith Electric Vehicles U.S.

There’s been a big push of late to foster wider adoption of all-electric vehicles in the U.S. – especially where light-duty commercial trucks are concerned.

Luminaries such as FedEx Corp.’s Chairman, President and CEO Frederick Smith are trying to get the government to help fund what would be a $120 billion plan over eight years, mainly through tax credits, to get seven million “grid-enabled” vehicles on America’s roads by 2018. [Now, because such incentives as vehicle tax credits are dependent on how many vehicles are purchased, $120 billion over eight years represents the maximum if all of the plan’s goals are met.]

Smith is particularly concerned about the national security ramifications of our heavy reliance on imported oil to fuel everyday life.

“It is my belief that after terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, our increased dependence on petroleum represents the biggest single threat to our nation’s economy and national security,” he said in testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development back in February this year.

“Oil is the lifeblood of a mobile, global economy. We are all dependent upon it, and that dependence brings with it inherent and serious risks,” he stressed. “In 2008, Americans consumed nearly 20 million barrels of oil a day – one-fourth of the world’s total. We imported 58% of the oil we consumed, leading to a U.S. trade deficit in crude oil and petroleum products that reached $388 billion – 56% of the total trade deficit.”

At the crux of America’s oil dependence, Smith said, is the energy demand of the transportation sector. Transportation accounted for almost 70% of American oil consumption in 2008, he noted in his testimony. Cars and trucks were 94% reliant on oil-based fuel for their energy, with no reliable substitutes immediately available in anything approaching sufficient quantities.

That’s why Smith is co-chairman of the Energy Security Leadership Council – a coalition of business executives and retired national security leaders formed in 2006 who believe that U.S. our dependence on oil, much of it imported from unstable and hostile regimes, poses an unacceptable economic and national security threat.

He’s also joined the Electrification Coalition, formed late last year, which is a group of business leaders that represent the entire value chain of an electrified transportation sector and are committed to promoting policies and actions that facilitate the deployment of electric vehicles on a mass scale.

[You can view some of his remarks below at the coalition’s “kick off” meeting in November 2009.]

Smith returned to Capitol Hill this week to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives as part of a panel dubbed Clean Energy Policies that Reduce Our Dependence on Foreign Oil, pointing out for instance that a 2009 RAND Corporation study places the cost of defending the U.S. foreign oil supply routes at between $67.5 billion and $83 billion each year.

[You can read more about Smith’s testimony here in a good story filed by Bartholomew Sullivan with The Commercial Appeal newspaper out of Memphis, TN.]

Yet a more fundamental question remains to be answered in all of this – how do you convince fleets, much less the average motorist, to make the switch from the petroleum powered internal combustion engine to an electric vehicle?

“Even as the technology and manufacturing hurdles are cleared, concerns remain over consumer acceptance. It’s a real issue for those of us in electric vehicle industry,” said Bryan Hansel , CEO of Smith Electric Vehicles U.S., an all-electric commercial truck maker based out of Kansas City, MO.

“Convincing customers to throw out a proven technology for an unknown technology, no matter the practical benefits, requires a bit of patience, certainly,” he explained. “It also requires rethinking how we, as producers of these cleaner vehicles, do business. Instead of waiting for the public to demand electric over diesel, we must realize that the old ways of selling vehicles might be part of the problem.”

He thinks part of the reason the “sales pitch” needs to change is that many of the technological and practicality problems afflicting the electric car market – like range and acceleration – don’t cross over to electric commercial trucks.

“With many commercial trucks having regular routes of 50-70 miles or less, an electric truck can operate all day on a single charge,” Hansel said. “Our plan calls for something different. So we’re looking at a new decentralized manufacturing model that will allow us to manage the total customer experience over the full lifetime of the vehicle – building new production facilities in 20 or so markets nationwide.”

[Here’s a walk-around of Smith’s all-electric truck shot last year during a special roll-out event in Washington D.C.]

Don’t mistake these facilities for dealerships, he stressed. What they’ll be are miniature production plants where customers can actually watch their electric truck assembled right in front of their eyes, as well as a place to service them.

“One concern with electric vehicles is simply the novelty of the technology. Although in many ways electric engines are less prone to breaking down, your neighborhood mechanic won’t have much experience fixing them, should the need arise,” Hansel noted. “That’s why we want our customers bringing their electric trucks in for service to the same location where we built and they bought them. We want our customers to understand the production process and trust the people who are making, selling and servicing their trucks.”

He added that the electric truck models Smith builds – dubbed “Newtons” – don’t require “Detroit-style” scale production factories.

“While the technology might be advanced, the production process is far simpler,” Hansel explained. “From the day we finalize a site, we believe we can have the facility up and running in 120 days, with minimal capital expenditure of between $3 and $5 million. Each site will have the ability to produce up to 1,250 trucks each year per shift, with a maximum of three possible shifts.”

Hansel’s hope is that this “decentralized production process” should address customer concerns about investing in something different.

[Here’s Hansel’s take on why all-electric trucks should appeal to fleets.]

“Customers may already know that an electric truck is better for the environment and will save money on gas. But how does it handle? How do I care for it? Does it go up a steep hill? By bringing the customer closer to the product, we aim to demystify electric vehicle technology,” he added.

“We in the industry can’t meet this new technology with a ‘business-as-usual’ attitude,” Hansel noted. “It’s our job is to rethink how we build, sell and maintain them.”

That will indeed be critical if electric vehicles are to become a viable transportation alternative in the U.S. for motorists and commercial fleets alike.

“We already have bio-based foam on more than two million vehicles and we’re looking to convert 100% of our fleet to it in the future.” –Jerry Brown, chief engineer-seat and restraint engineering, Ford Motor Company

Motor vehicles – from cars to heavy trucks – get a bum rap from many environmental-esqe corners these days, despite a plethora of ongoing efforts to reduce their impact upon the world’s ecosystems.

For example, if you’ve seen a cartoon of a truck in the editorial pages of any U.S. newspaper, most likely it’s belching big black smoke – because, of course, that’s what “dirty” diesel powered trucks do, right? Well, no, actually. Buy a 2010-compliant big rig and in many cases its exhaust will be cleaner than what we’re breathing in most major U.S. metropolitan locales these days.

[They’ll actually be acting as air scrubbers, or sorts, out in the Los Angeles basin, capturing all sorts of soot particulates in their DPFs – talk about leaving things better than they found them!]

At either end of the vehicle scale – light to heavy – fuel economy is improving. Big rig makers such as Daimler Trucks North America, Volvo Trucks North America, and Mack Truck are touting 3% to 5% fuel efficiency gains for their 2010-compliant products. On the lighter side, car makers such as Ford Motor Co. are boosting fuel economy though the use of lighter, more powerful, yet fuel sipping engines married to more sophisticated transmissions.

For example, the fuel efficiency Ford’s 2010 model Fusion sedan jumped 21% over the 2009 version – stepping up from 28 mpg to 34 mpg in highway driving – in part due to a new six-speed transmission, which offers a wider gear span than four-speed transmissions and thus a better platform for attaining fuel efficiency gains.

Yet it doesn’t stop there, because automobiles are among the most recycled consumer products in the U.S. these days, with more than 95% of all end-of-life vehicles processed for recycling – compared to 52% of all paper products and 31% of all plastic soft drink bottles in our country.

Now, Ford and other car makers are taking things a step further – using a variety of recycled and other more “eco-friendly” products in the actual manufacturer of cars and light trucks. While I am using Ford to show off a lot of this stuff, recognize that most automakers are engaged along similar lines. So check some of Ford’s initiatives out:

• Using bio-based materials, such as soy, to make polyurethane foams on the seat cushions, seatbacks and headliners on 11 vehicle models. Some two million Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles on the road today with bio-foam seats equates to a reduction in petroleum oil usage of approximately 1.5 million pounds.

• Post-consumer recycled resins such as detergent bottles, tires and battery casings are being used to make underbody systems, such as aerodynamic shields, splash shields and radiator air deflector shields. The latest example is the engine cam cover on the 3.0-liter V-6 2010 Ford Escape. This effort alone has helped divert between 25 and 30 million pounds of plastic from landfills, Ford said.

• Using post-industrial recycled yarns for vehicle seat fabrics on the Ford Escape and Escape Hybrid. A 100% usage of recycled yarns can mean a 64% reduction in energy consumption and a 60 percent reduction in CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions compared to the use of new yarns.

• Repurposed nylon carpeting made into nylon resin and molded into cylinder head covers for Ford’s 3.0-liter Duratec engine, now being used in the 2010 Ford Fusion sedan and Escape SUV.

• Wheat straw-reinforced plastic for the third-row storage bins of the 2010 Ford Flex SUV. The natural fiber replaces energy-inefficient glass fibers commonly used to reinforce plastic parts.

• Ford’s European Focus sedan model uses recycled polymer in such components as the battery tray, wheel arch liners, seat fabric and carpets. Materials engineers are in the process of determining if recycled polymer can be used for similar components in the global Focus coming to North America and Europe in 2011.

“Natural fiber-reinforced plastics and plant-based polymer resins help reduce CO2 emissions by being entirely compostable – and, in some cases, they reduce weight, which helps improve fuel economy,” said Debbie Mielewski, technical leader at Ford Plastics Research.

“We have to entertain the thought of bio-replacement in baby steps, looking at every aspect of a car that could be green,” she added. “One day I hope to see the world of automotive plastics go totally compostable, removing petroleum [based products] by 100%.”

Of course, sustainable materials need to meet the same high standards for quality, durability and performance as virgin material; there can be no compromise on product quality stressed Valentina Cerato, an engineer with Ford materials in Europe. Yet they seem to be doing just that.

Other “alternative” materials research continues, looking at a replacement for the fiberglass used between the headliner and roof sheet metal that will be bio-based, lighter weight, and will deliver improved acoustics and neutralize odor.

Ford also said its researchers are developing natural-fiber composites as a potential substitute for the glass fibers traditionally used in plastic car parts to make them stronger, and again reducing vehicle weight, which helps improve fuel economy and reduces emissions. Natural fiber composites also are more eco-friendly, because their production and end-of-life incineration are less energy intensive than glass fibers, which also results in lower emissions, the automaker added.

Ford’s researchers also are investigating ways to use plastics made entirely from sustainable resources such as corn, sugar beets, sweet potatoes and other vegetables. These renewable materials will help reduce dependency on petroleum, reduce CO2 emissions and allow the composting of the material at the end of a vehicle’s life, noted John Viera, Ford’s director of sustainability and environmental policy.

“By increasing the use of recycled or renewable content and reducing the use of undesirable materials whenever possible, we’re helping to reduce waste to landfills by millions of pounds,” he said – and saving money in the process, too; approximately $4.5 million by using recycled materials in 2009 alone.

Part of the “recycling” trick with vehicles is to make design them so dismantling, reuse, recovery and recycling of them at end-of-life is easier, Viera noted. That means reducing the use of hazardous substances, increasing the use of recycled materials in vehicle manufacture, and above all ensuring that parts do not contain mercury, hexavalent chromium, cadmium or lead.

Reuse is a big part of the recycling story as auto recyclers supply more than one third of all ferrous scrap to the U.S. scrap processing industry, he pointed out, as when manufacturers use scrap iron and steel instead of newly produced ore, they reduce air and water pollution by more than half during the manufacturing process.

“In theory, end-of-life vehicles are nearly 100% recoverable. In practice, however, the cost in energy and labor to recover all vehicle material often exceeds the value of the materials and offers insignificant value to the environment,” Viera said. “We remain focused on achieving the highest economically viable and environmentally sound recovery percentage possible.”

These are good environmental stories auto and truck makers have to tell. Problem is, few know about it, nor do they care to listen. Hopefully, though, that will change – and change soon.

“It’s not about the cost of equipment, people, pay and benefits; it’s not about volumes in individual lanes. The question companies must ask themselves is this: what’s the best [transportation] choice for handling highly critical freight? That’s where the private fleet comes into play.” –Mike Cole, director-North American transportation, Kraft Foods Inc.

Last week at the National Private Truck Council’s 2010 annual meeting in Cincinnati, the director of North American transportation for Kraft Foods – Mike Cole – spoke about making the case for private fleet operations in today’s rough-and-tumble freight environment.

A lot of companies view private fleets as nothing more than a very expensive line item in their budgets; one that can easily be replaced by for-hire carrier. Others – like Cole – believe not only that there’s a vital role for private fleets to play in the freight world today, but that entire debate over transportation must change.

To his mind, it’s not about private fleet vs. for-hire carrier or even in-house transportation management vs. outsourcing. For shippers today and the transportation networks that move their goods, it’s all about flexibility, safety, sustainability, and of course on-time deliveries in the most cost-efficient manner possible.

From this viewpoint, Cole explained, it’s about maintaining a “mix” of transportation options. Sometimes, switching from trucks to intermodal or even ships is a more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly move. At others, though, a private fleet proves vital – especially when something unexpected in the supply chain occurs; and as we all know, such occurrences are not rare.

“A private fleet is valuable because it can turn on a dime and it offers a level of commitment to the business that you don’t always get from for-hire carriers or brokers,” he noted. That being said, a private fleet can’t – and shouldn’t – do it all, Cole stressed, and at times it’s more efficient to let for-hire carriers and other modes handle the freight.

“You have to look at things from a societal, environmental, and efficiency perspective – not from an emotional reaction to maintain private fleet exclusivity,” he said. For example, he pointed to a case where Kraft’s private fleet gave up some surge freight to a for-hire carrier, because that carrier was in a better position to handle it.

“It generated significant additional revenue for that carrier and relieved us of freight we couldn’t handle well from an internal perspective,” Cole said. “But we also built more trust with that carrier and got added service from them. It’s a shift that benefited us both beyond just the freight calculation.”

He pointed to a different example whereby Kraft shifted wheat shipments coming from Canada into the U.S. from truck to ship transit via the Great Lakes. “We went from 10,200 truck trips annually, generating 5.7 million pounds of CO2 [carbon dioxide] to 24 ship loads per year producing just 1.7 million pounds of CO2 – while using software planning tools to account for the transit time difference,” Cole noted.

Towards the end of his presentation, Cole put up an interesting slide comprised of 10 points he felt private fleets must closely adhere to going forward in order to keep themselves a relevant and vibrant part of their overall company’s business. Those points are:

• Deliver against company commitments for safety, service, and financial metrics

• Know your costs

• Stick to your knitting

• Reach out to customers, peers, suppliers, and industry associations

• Invest in people and technology

• Communicate value relentlessly

• The company comes before the fleet

• Proactively justify your operation

• Flexibility – evolve with business needs

• Plan for the future – never take yourself for granted

“Justification of the private fleet usually comes up about every two years,” Cole added. “That’s why private fleets must stay inter-connected not just within their companies but within the transportation industry as a whole. We bring a lot of value in the table not just by carrying company freight at a more efficient cost but helping bring greater efficiencies to the entire supply chain – even by giving up some of that freight.”

Even now, Cole is working on getting more of the data collected and analyzed on the manufacturing side of Kraft’s global business to filter down to transportation.

“If we can develop a better ‘porthole’ for viewing the demand and planning factors in our manufacturing operations, we can better plan how to serve their needs in terms of handling surge volumes,” he said. “We can also share that information with our core for-hire carriers so they can plan out capacity availability better. It brings out a whole new level of cooperation on the transportation side of our business if we can share in the information generated from other divisions. That helps us plan better.”

And at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about in the freight world, isn’t it?

“Reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global climate change is one of the great challenges of our time. As transportation is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gases, the transportation sector must be a big part of the solution.” –U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood

With a mighty thunk, the latest “magnum opus” about the perils of climate change, the evils of carbon dioxide, and transportation’s role in the creation of such evil landed upon the desks of unfortunate Congressional staffers this week – one, however, mandated by that very lsame egislative body those staffers serve.

Clocking in at 605 pages (not quite the epic scale of the recent health care bill, but certainly no lightweight, either) this latest report from the U.S. Department of Transportation – dubbed Transportation’s Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and mandated by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 – lays out a number of strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from the transportation, sector such as using low-carbon fuels, increasing vehicle fuel economy, improving system efficiency and reducing travel that involves high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

First, here’s the DOT’s take on the scope of transportation’s GHG problem, based on copious amounts of research (it’s true – I virtually “thumbed through” some of this massive text last night and got a migraine just from the footnotes.)

According to the report, 29% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and 5% of global emissions are due to burning fuel to power U.S. vehicles. Here’s a surprise, though – the majority of these emissions, some 59%, come from light-duty vehicles, followed by freight trucks (19%) and aircraft (12%). Between 1990 and 2007, GHGs from U.S. transportation operations increased 27%, and accounted for almost one-half of the total national increase during that period.

Now – before going any further – let’s look back at those numbers. Transportation as a whole is responsible for just over a quarter of GHG emissions, yet we’re gearing up to make some making strategic changes in this sector. Pardon me, but what about the other 71% or so? Seems to me a much larger slice of the GHG pie is being placed on the back burner.

[Then again, take a look at this video from the Vulcan Project, which maps out ALL U.S. carbon emissions from ALL sources. It puts a lot of the GHG debate into some sort of visual context at the very least.]

Another issue: cars and trucks do NOT make up the lion’s share of GHG emissions. In an interesting video interview [which you can watch by clicking here] Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials, noted that 52% of the world’s CO2 emissions come from the construction of buildings, another 12% from making the building materials themselves, and a further 40% from operation said buildings. By contrast, only 9% of global CO2 emissions comes from cars – meaning we could be focusing a lot of time and effort on a very small piece of the GHG puzzle.

[Oh, yeah – one other thing that worries me: PEOPLE produce CO2 as a result of BREATHING. So am I going to be facing “carbon reduction” mandates soon? Hoo boy … what a depressing thought …]

Another point here – notice how LIGHT duty vehicles are responsible for well over HALF of GHG emissions in the transportation sector, with trucking a very distant second. That would seem to indicate that a larger focus on the GHG reduction effort should fall on cars, pickups, minivans and SUVs.

But of course, those light vehicles are largely owned by John Q. Public – it’s a lot easier to go after those big, bad polluting big rigs. Oh, wait – I forgot: The exhaust from those diesel-powered behemoths everyone likes to bash is actually CLEANER in many cases that the air going into their internal combustion systems. They actually CLEAN the air now. Too bad no one wanted to help defray the cost increase for 2010-compliant equipment – we could’ve really engaged in some serious pollution reduction, while creating manufacturing jobs too.

But I digress.

Espoused by the DOT’s mammoth tome are several strategies geared to chop GHG levels from the transportation sector. Here are several of the big ones:

• More fuel efficient gasoline vehicles could reduce per-vehicle emissions 8% to 30%, hybrid vehicles 26% to 54%, and plug-in hybrids 46% to 75%.

• More direct routing of airline flights using so-called “NextGen” technology and more efficient takeoffs and landings could reduce aviation greenhouse emissions by up to 10% by 2025.

• Reducing the number of vehicle-miles traveled through a combination of strategies, including improved public transportation, coordinated transportation and land use strategies, and greater opportunities for walking and biking – practices emphasized in the Department’s livability initiative – could reduce transportation greenhouse emissions 5% to 17% by 2030.

The report also discusses policy options for implementing these strategies, such as efficiency standards, transportation planning and investment, market-based incentives, research and development, and economy-wide carbon policies.

Just so you know, the American Trucking Association (ATA) came up with its own GHG reduction and fuel saving strategies a couple of years ago to point the DOT towards some low-hanging fruit when it comes to fuel savings and GHG reductions.

While not everyone agrees with the ATA’s pointers, these ideas would help slash fuel consumption by 86 billion gallons and CO2 emissions by 900 million tons from truckers over 10 years. They include:

• Setting engine governors on new trucks to limit speeds to no more than 65 mph and reduce the national speed limit to 65 mph for all vehicles.

• Reduce engine idling

• Increase fuel efficiency by encouraging participation in the U.S. EPA SmartWay Transport Partnership Program.

• Reduce congestion by improving highways, if necessary by raising the fuels tax and dedicating that revenue to fixing key congestion points.

• Use more productive truck combinations.

• Support national fuel economy standards for trucks.

However, let’s point out a few huge caveats as we start looking at reducing GHGs from the transportation sector.

First – and most importantly – while all this might work out super-good on paper, rarely does it go so well in real life. Take fuel economy, for starters; it’s easy to work out on paper how making this or that change results in this or that percentage in fuel efficiency gains with carbon reductions. But truck tires offer a great example of how this doesn’t always work out in the real world.

Goodyear’s Tim Miller explained in a presentation at the National Private Truck Council’s 2010 convention this week that tires can demonstrate 20% fuel efficiency gains in the laboratory; however, this then falls to 8% in controlled test track work, shrinking again to 4% when the tires are put into “real world” service.

Why? Because so many factors affect fuel economy, he said – wind, road conditions, the weather, the aerodynamics of the vehicle, tire pressure, how it’s driven – and you simply can’t control all the variables.

Second – and this is something rarely discussed in these high falutin’ reports – the economic impact of such GHG reduction efforts needs to be carefully examined. Environmentalists may pooh-pooh “economic concerns” all they want, but they matter.

Go ahead, increase fuel taxes, encourage people to walk, use mass transit, etc. End result is, people will buy fewer cars. All well and good – just then don’t wring your hands about closing down vehicle manufacturing plants and job losses among unionized workers, and don’t use tax money to prop up said industries when they start to shrink and reduce headcount.

Here’s another point to consider – if you are going to drive more people to mass transit, make sure it WORKS. Washington D.C.’s Metorail subway system offers a prime example here. It’s plagued by delays, meaning it offers inconsistent and unreliable service (I know; I use it). You can’t expect people to use mass transit en masse (so to speak) if it isn’t reliable.

Further, you’ll have to subsidize mass transit more than you think. One reason Metrorail has problems is that it’s been chronically underfunded for years – people scream about the high fares, but those fares barely scratch the surface of its capital needs.

So if we’re going to really favor mass transit, we need to pony up more cash, while demanding consistent results – “if,” I stress, that’s what we want to do.

It’s one of the many often expensive and far-reaching trade-offs we need to consider outside the pure fuel savings/GHG reduction numbers laid out in the DOT’s report.

“Two roads diverged in a wood … and I … I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.” –From the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

I come across a lot of unusual and interesting stuff in the trucking business, but nothing quite like 24- year-old Austin Bretzel’s one-of-a-kind headboard.

And if you’re wondering, the answer is yes; that’s a real front grill off a 1996 Peterbilt 379 tractor – Austin’s first truck as an owner-operator – and yes, the headlamps really do work (though the wattage is a LOT lower than when they operated out on the highway, I’m told!)

Austin – a resident of Sussex, WI – told me he’s had the “trucking bug” as it were for most of his young life – and it’s one of the reasons why this unique headboard came to be. He got his CDL at age 19 and spent the next two years hauling flatbeds in and around Wisconsin. The day he turned 21, though, Austin got the nod to go long-haul – making his first PTR run to Missouri – and he’s been hooked ever since.

“Ever since then I have grabbed gears, getting to basically be a ‘paid tourist of the USA’ as I like to say,” he told me be email. “I have been from the west coast to the east coast and everywhere in between.”

Back in March 2008 Austin became an owner-operator at the ripe old age of 22, buying the aforementioned 1996 Peterbilt 379. Intent on creating his own “look” for his ride, Austin said he replaced the original front grill and other parts. Yet for some reason he couldn’t bear to part with the original grill.

“I wanted to save it for whatever reason, so I put it in my dad’s garage,” he explained. “But after moving it around for cleaning and getting at stuff, my dad told me you got to either get rid of it or do something with it. So I decided to put it together and make it into my headboard for my bed.”

First he sanded the grill surround by hand – using 100 grit and then 2,000 grit sand paper – then buffed it out using brown and green rouge bars, finishing out the buffing by hand. To get “the look” of having rivets on the grill, Austin bought 80 stainless half-inch carriage bolts and nuts and attached them to the grill.

“To get a complete look, I put double ‘J’ headlight bars on and single round headlights with the LED [light emitting diode] marker lights,” Austin added. “My best friend Dave, who is an electrical engineer, helped me design an electrical circuit with a transformer to covert the electrical current to make the headlights and LED marker lights work.”

He said they then hooked up the lights to two toggle switches, with one turning on the marker lights and the other activating the headlights that now serve as reading lamps.

“Since the headlight buckets stick past the grill in back, I added two inches of wood to make it look like its coming through the wall – and I have it far enough from the wall so as not interfere with the headlight buckets,” Austin noted. “I also extended the wood down to the ground so it’s free standing since its almost 80 pounds all together.”

The whole headboard itself is six-foot tall and is the perfect width for a full-size bed, he said. “So I guarantee I have the only true real Peterbilt headboard, especially with real working full-size headlights!” he crowed.

Pretty awesome work, if you ask me.

“Many things affect fuel economy – wind, weather, temperature, vehicle aerodynamics, vehicle speed and of course tires. So you have to look at many different factors when you are looking to improve fuel economy.” –Tim Miller, marketing communications manager, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

So I got the good fortune to sit through a very interesting workshop on truck tires during the National Private Truck Council’s 2010 meeting this week in Cincinnati, made all the more interesting as three of the top and toughest competitors in the truck tire market – Goodyear, Michelin, and Bridgestone – lowered their collective fists, if you will, to offer private fleet managers insights into how truck tires impact fuel economy and how their fuel savings potential is being tapped for a range of environmental issues.

Tim Miller, Goodyear’s marketing communications manager, started things off with a look at all the factors affecting tractor-trailer fuel economy today, highlighting the role tires play in delivering greater fuel efficiency.

Interestingly enough, it’s the little stuff – proper tire inflation and alignment – than can accumulate big fuel economy deficits if fleets don’t manage these maintenance items carefully.

Miller said each 10 psi (pounds per square inch) tires are underinflated results in a 1% in fuel efficiency, with out-of-spec wheel alignment on both the tractor and trailer leading to a 1% to 2% loss in fuel economy.

“Poor wheel alignment also increases tire wear, meaning you lose tire life as well as fuel,” he stressed.

[More of Miller’s comments are in the clip below.]

Vehicle speed, though – especially highway speeds – hits fuel economy far harder than tires, Miller said. Between 55 and 75 mph, aerodynamic drag has three times as much impact on fuel efficiency as the rolling resistance of the tires, with every 5 mph increase between those speeds typically resulting in a 0.5 mpg loss in fuel economy – a hit of 7%.

The type of trucking operation, too, though greatly influences fuel economy – to the point where fuel-efficient tire designs won’t do much good.

For example, Miller said fuel efficient tires would be wasted on the low speed/start-and-stop operations typically found with urban delivery routes, while only marginally helping high speed/poor aerodynamic trucking applications such as car hauling.

Fuel efficient tires really offer a big bang for the buck, though, in high speed/high aerodynamic operations such as tanker fleets, he stressed.

One interesting side note in all of this – tire fuel savings actually increase as the tread wears down, meaning that older tires typically save more fuel than new ones, Miller said. Along with that, he stressed that fleets need to understand that the “real world” fuel savings a tire provides almost never equals what such tires produce in controlled field tests (such as SAE’s Type II test), much less the laboratory.

“The ‘real world’ contains wind, poor pavement, poor weather, traffic congestion, vehicle aerodynamics, and a host of other issues we as tire makers factor out in our various tests,” he explained. “That’s why the fuel savings tend to be smaller.”

That being said, tire manufacturers are constantly trying to find ways to mitigate such factors, as Don Baldwin, product marketing manager for Michelin Americas Truck Tires explained.

[See some more of Baldwin’s comments in the clip below.]

One tactic is making sure tires fit well to the truck wheel, for an imperfect fit causes the tire to “wiggle” or move. “That extra movement creates heat – and the energy lost in creating that heat comes right out of the truck’s fuel tank,” he explained. “Now, we’re working with more elastic compounds to try and reduce the creation of heat – to reduce that energy loss – but they are not always the best compounds for traction or long life wear. That’s part of ‘balancing act’ when making truck tires.”

One reason Michelin in particular strongly pursued the development of “wide base” tires to replace the dual tire configuration found on the rear axles of tractors is reduce overall tire and wheel mass – as less energy and thus fuel is required to “push” less mass down the road – but also to reduce excess tire movement, too.

“No two duals are ever inflated perfectly, so one is always carrying more load than the other, and that makes each dual behave differently,” Baldwin explained. “Different behavior” in this case means “different movement” and that can increase fuel expenditure, so having one tire and thus one tread perform in a unified fashion alleviates this concern.

Aside from “wide base” tires, Baldwin said the focus is to create tires that have a little wider footprint for better traction, yet need less tread as a result – a design that offers a better fuel economy profile due to less tread depth (mirroring the advantages of older, worn tires) yet without a corresponding loss in expected life to removal.

“Little by little, we’re lessening the trade offs,” added Guy Walenga, director of engineering for Bridgestone’s commercial tire products. “No longer must fleets give up mileage or traction to get better fuel economy.”

The tricky part here is that such “fuel saving factors” are drawing the attention of regulatory agencies – particularly at the state level.

[Walenga delves into how the voluntary specs espoused by the Environmental Protection Agency’s SmartWay program are now mandatory in the state of California – all due to rules hammered put by the California Air Resources Board or “CARB.”]

In the case of the CARB, commercial trucks operating in California – even if they are domiciled outside the “Golden State” – must use so-called “SmartWay specs,” including tires approved under the program.

This applies on to Class 7 and Class 8 trucks hauling 53-foot dry van or refrigerated trailers, though Walenga expects CARB – and potentially other states as well – to add more configurations as the EPA adds them to the “SmartWay” program.

“Right now, 13 to 14 other states – such as Nevada, new Mexico, Arizona and some eastern states as well – are considering following CARB’s path here,” he said.

One thing to note, though: CARB allows fleets to use retreaded tires under its SmartWay spec mandate – something EPA does not – as long as the tire casing is one of the 70 different tire models currently approved under the SmartWay program.

At the end of the day, Walenga expects fleets nationwide will begin to shift to a single “SmartWay” spec for their tractor-trailers in order to keep their operations environmentally compliant regardless of what state they happen to be driving in – and that includes using one type of tire for everything, too.

“Not too long ago, we used to have one tractor-trailer configuration for long-haul operations and one for pickup and delivery,” he said. “Over time, with improvements in truck design, fleets could use one truck to do it all. We expect the same may happen with fuel efficient truck tires.”

“Over many years and millions of miles, they did what they did without thought of ever getting on a stage like this. They are rarely appreciated for what they do in America, yet they represent the very best of our industry and our country.” –Gary Petty, president and CEO, National Private Truck Council, on the four 2010 inductees into the groups’ “Driver Hall of Fame”

It’s quite something to meet truck drivers honored for accumulating millions of safe miles over decades of hard work that are literally wondering what the fuss is all about.

The four gentlemen inducted in the National Private Truck Council’s “Driver Hall of Fame” this year are typically of this ever-more-rare breed – quiet, unassuming fellows that work hard day after day, year after year, delivering everything from food and medicine to carpets, livestock to liquefied argon gas; stuff without which the U.S. and its 320 million-plus citizens couldn’t function.

Take Isaac Simmons, a four-decade trucking veteran that’s been with CVS Transportation out of Knoxville, TN, for 35 years. He racked up 4.1 million safe miles with only one incident in his entire career – a non-chargeable accident when his load shifted back in 1970 (when a guy named Nixon was in the White House).

He also got the only speeding ticket of his life that year while driving his personal vehicle and vowed not to get another one – another of the many promises he’s made good on.

And remember, this is a guy still putting in some heavy miles – 625 a day, 3,100 a week – as a shuttle driver for CVS through South Carolina and Alabama; the kind of miles that expose one to all kinds of hazards. Yet he’s stayed safe, all the while delivering prescription medicines and cosmetics on time.

Isaac’s work ethic reflects how he approaches his job: “It’s all about doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do,” a lesson he learned from his mother and father and one he continues to follow to this day.

[Dan Baker, who served as the “master of ceremonies” for NPTC’s “Driver Hall of Fame” induction, pointed out that how fleets manage veteran drivers is going to change as the next generation moves into the truck cab.]

Then there’s Richard Kutz, a driver for Kraft Foods out of Allentown, PA. While at Kraft for 37 out of his 43 years on the road, he’s never missed a day of work – and accumulated 4.7 million safe driving miles in the process, delivering all sorts of perishable foods in reefer trailers.

Like many truckers, Kutz got a start in the craft of driving while serving in U.S. Army in Thailand, and today he serves as a mentor for the next generation of drivers coming up through the ranks at Kraft.

Next is Jerry Beasley, a 34 year driving veteran that’s been hauling carpet and wood flooring for Shaw Industries out of Dalton, GA, since 1979. Fit and trim with 4.5 million safe miles under his belt, Beasley is a big believer in the benefits of physical fitness and healthy living.

“When on the road, waiting to be loaded or unloaded, I take a 1.2 mile walk,” he explained. “I also eat lots of vegetables and stay away from greasy foods.” That and his safety mindset keep him alert and accident free at the wheel as he still clocks in 2,400 miles a week.

[Just as another side: Dan Baker loves to tell funny “down-home” stories as part of driver-focused presentations. Here are a couple he told at the induction ceremony below for your enjoyment.]

Finally, there’s David Solomon, a 28-year driver that’s been with Matheson Tri-Gas out of Bandera, TX, since 1987. He’s done a little of everything over his career – hauling livestock and mobile homes, driving tow trucks and delivering equipment to the oil patch.

At Matheson, he drives tankers full of nitrogen, oxygen, and liquefied gases – not the easiest of trades. Yet all the while, despite the many different applications he’s worked in, Solomon accumulated 3.3 million safe miles.

Long time industry veteran Dan Baker, who served as the “master of ceremonies” for NPTC’s driver hall of fame inductions, noted that Solomon epitomized how many drivers react when they learned of their inclusion among “the best of the best” in the industry, past and present.

“He told me, ‘I don’t know why I’ve been selected; there’s a lot of guys in my fleet as good if not better than I am,’” Baker told the audience; a feeling he said most drivers express when they win such awards.

NPTC also awarded driver Denis Litalien out of Biddeford, ME, its humanitarian award for a lifetime of charity work. He founded the Maine professional Drivers Association more than 20 years ago to promote safety and courtesy on the highway, while raising money for the American Lung Association and St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, serving as the chairman of the Maine Trucking for Kids group, even volunteering as an official at Biddeford high school football games.

“These are drivers that represent the best that people can be,” Baker said. “They show that you don’t have to be afraid to believe in something that is bigger than yourself; that it is OK to be humble, to look up to others, and to let their work speak for itself.”

It is quite something indeed to see such solid work and charity service rewarded. Now, if only their accomplishments were more widely appreciated — much less noticed — outside the ranks of the trucking industry …

“So many attendees this year have an optimistic outlook for their companies. This is just such great news compared to what we heard last year.” –Gary Petty, president and CEO, National Private Truck Council

Attendance here at the National Private Truck Council’s (NPTC) annual convention – held this year in Cincinnati, OH – is definitely up over last year, with close to 900 folks prowling the show floor and workshops covering a wide variety of topics, compared to roughly 750 in 2009.

By and large, most of the people I’ve talked with – representing fleets and suppliers alike – seemed to think we’ve turned a corner not just in terms of the U.S. and global economy, but in trucking as well.

[That’s Gary Petty, NPTC’s president and CEO, at right.]

However, that doesn’t mean the challenges facing the industry suddenly up and melted away; rather, they are shifting. One logistics manager I talked with fulminated on the growing lack of capacity in trucking and how that may plague the industry for some time to come.

Fleets – both private and for-hire – in many cases made permanent reductions to their operations in the face of the dire economic headwinds of 2008-2009, leaving them constrained now that freight volumes are starting to tick up again.

Still, this is an issue driven in large measure by the relentless long-term pressure on freight rates by shippers; a strategy that is starting to come back to haunt many, and may yet force many to get back into the trucking business themselves if they want to obtain reliable, consistent capacity.

[Below is a music tour of NPTC’s 2010 convention being held here in Cincinnati, OH.]

I talked with Carl Anderson with Stoughton Trailers about the strong quoting activity going on for transportation equipment right now. After many fleets over-extended the ownership period for trucks and trailers in order to reduce capital expenditures, many may find themselves with no other option than to buy new units.

“Everyone’s looking for late model used equipment, but guess what? Not a lot of that is out there as everyone held on to their units during the downturn,” Anderson told me. The trailer manufacturing industry would welcome a host of new orders; according to ACT Research, trailer sales as a whole dropped to 79,432 units last year – a nearly 50% drop from 144,377 in 2008 and over 75% decline from 277,398 units in 2006.

There’s also growing concern over rising diesel fuel prices. Since February this year, the average price for diesel in the U.S. increased 25 cents to $3.06 per gallon, and forecasts from the Energy Information Administration indicate demand for crude oil – from which diesel is made – is only going to go up in the months ahead.

More troubling to John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute, is that U.S. energy policy still seems to be focused on reducing opportunities to tap domestic supplies of oil and natural gas – restricting supply even as global demand seems headed for a spike.

People don’t realize, Felmy (at left) said, that when President Obama announced his Administration’s intention to open parts of the Atlantic Coast to offshore drilling, his plan also called for the removal of large swaths of the Pacific Coast from consideration. “He put 3.8 billion barrels worth of potential supply on the table, while taking 13. Billion barrels off of it,” Felmy noted in a presentation here at NPTC.

The issue is that there’s roughly 116.4 billion barrels worth of untapped oil supplies in the U.S., both on land and in coastal waters – capable of fueling 65 million cars for 60 years – with a further 650.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas available, which could heat 60 million homes for 160 years. This is all critical as energy demand continues to rise, while alternative sources of power remain scarce.

“We say we’re going to double the amount of power we’re going to get from the wind over the next decade; great, that brings us from 1% to 2% of that generating capacity,” Felmy explained. “What people don’t realize is that it takes a long time to transition from one energy source to the next. For example, oil was discovered in 1859, but it wasn’t until 1950 when its use surpassed that of coal.”

This is but one of many challenges trucking – and freight transportation at large – is going to face as the world’s economies continue to recover.

“Embedding environmental evaluation in day-to-day packaging decisions is a critical step to improving the stewardship and conservation of valuable resources for the future.” –Anne Johnson, director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition

All this focus on “sustainability” may seem way too “touchy feely” for truckers, but I’ve been finding out there’s a none-too-secret reason more and more shippers and transportation providers are ready to jump on the “sustainability” band wagon: cost savings.

Take United Parcel Service’s new “green” measurement system for shipment packaging, for example. Dubbed the Eco Responsible Packaging Program (and what a ridiculous name THAT is), UPS said this effort is designed to evaluate a customer’s packaging processes in three areas: damage prevention, right-sizing and packaging materials.

UPS said it will then “score” the results and those customers who meet the requirements can display the program’s logo on their shipment packaging.

Strip away the layers of “sustainability” rhetoric, though, and you can start to see why the costs savings potential for stuff like this is getting people’s attention.

Bob Stoffel, UPS’s senior vp-engineering, strategy, supply chain and sustainability, said that so-called “responsible packaging” begins with protecting the contents being transported, for damaged goods not only frustrate the recipient but often lead to the need to remanufacture and reship – doubling the shipment’s carbon footprint but also burning more pricey fuel.

So – wallah! – by packing it right the first time, the transporter and the shipper can at the very least reduce costs associated with freight damage and fuel costs.

Stoffel also says shrinking the size of the box means using less material and, by extension, fewer assets to transport said package. Again, right there: costs savings on two fronts.

I exchanged emails with Steve Yucknut, vice president of sustainability for Kraft Foods, not too long ago about much bigger and longer-term sustainability efforts on Kraft’s part. Since 2005, the company sliced more than 50 million freight truck miles out its global transportation and distribution network.

Now, truckers might look at that and say, “Hey, they’re cutting back on the very service I provide,” but that’s just the surface view.

Yucknut (at left) told me it’s all about re-configuring transportation so it’s more “sustainable” from both an environmental and economic perspective. In many cases, that meant shifting to more truck-rail moves than truck –only, and for some very good reasons; namely, avoiding highway congestion. Letting a big rig sit in traffic, going nowhere for hours while burning gallons of diesel, does no favors for anyone’s pocketbook, much less for Mother Nature.

“We think about miles, piles and idles when moving our product,” Yucknut told me. “We’re finding ways to drive fewer miles, reduce inventory piles and eliminate idling trucks. We’re collaborating with customers and suppliers alike and we’re using a number of high-tech innovations for our trucks and warehouses to reduce energy and CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions.”

For example, in North America, Kraft Foods saved more than a million miles of truck transport by replacing 10,000 truck shipments by shipping wheat via waterways to its Toledo, Ohio, flour mill; with ships making bigger yet less frequent deliveries.

Here are some of the other “sustainable” changes Kraft made worldwide to its transportation and logistics system:

• In Brazil, it saved nearly 250,000 miles by using boats to send products to distribution centers. In just six months, the change saved more than 125 truck shipments.

• In Germany, Kraft Foods transports coffee beans from Bremen to its Berlin roasting plant, saving about 1.8 million miles and taking 7,000 trucks off the road.

• In Austria, Kraft Foods saved more than 150,000 miles by sending products in refrigerated containers on railcars, eliminating 400 truck shipments.

• In the United Kingdom, the company now sends products to one of its key customers by train instead of truck, saving more than 40,000 miles and eliminating 120 truck shipments.

• In Europe overall, Kraft Foods is modernizing its transportation network by establishing a single hub in Bratislava, Slovakia to make 20% fewer trips between its European plants and distribution centers.

• In the Philippines, the company now uses a national distribution center so customers receive shipments 20% faster than before, saving miles and fuel.

Yet Yucknut he emphasized that all of Kraft’s our sustainability projects need to make business sense in the long run; otherwise, they wouldn’t be truly “sustainable.”

“Sure, we’re using trucking alternatives where possible, but as mentioned before, we’re doing it where it makes business sense,” he told me. “Often times rail and truck combinations can reduce our fuel consumption and CO2 emissions and provide greater capacity. Of course, there’s only so much track out there, and rail isn’t always an option. That’s why we’re making our existing truck equipment more efficient. And our private fleet of trucks ‘earns its keep’ by providing better service at a lower cost the competition.”

And if you think trucks aren’t part of Kraft’s “sustainable” transportation vision for the future, think again. Check these efforts out:

• In North America, Kraft purchased 11 hybrid direct store delivery vehicles for frozen products. The hybrid power train and electric refrigeration technology use up to 30% less fuel than a traditional truck.

• In Mexico, the company pioneered a ”double-decker” transport system that allows trucks to safely carry up to 56 pallets in one load – twice as many as before.

• Back in the U.S., using Oracle’s Transportation Management program to create Project MOST (Management of Optimized Sustainable Transportation), Kraft measured truck movements and designs new trip segments to minimize “empty miles,” eliminating more than 500,000 miles in 2008 alone.

“Hybrid trucks are evolving, and it’s just one of the high tech solutions we’re using to reduce emissions,” Yucknut told me. “The diesel-electric hybrid truck has a refrigeration system that operates with electricity generated by the truck’s engine instead of a separate diesel-powered unit—so it’s lighter and has fewer moving parts. So there are quite a few advantages to consider.”

He added that another important part of Kraft’s “sustainability” success is with relationships built with customers, other carriers, and even government entities like the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We’ve been working with the EPA’s SmartWay partnership for several years, and they’ve helped us adopt new technology like auxiliary power units (APUs) to reduce idling, as well as lots of other technologies,” Yucknut said. “They also helped us with our ‘no idling’ policy at distribution centers and many plants and the decision to reduce our governed top speed on all over-the-road tractors from 65 to 62 miles per hour.”

In the end, he said, the future is really about driving culture change to not only become more “green” in the classic environmental sense but to save money, too.

“We’re finding that when we look at our business through a sustainability lens, we create the ability to drive lasting change,” Yucknut explained. “People come up with great ideas that will help us grow our business and reduce costs, while protecting the environment and society.”

Frankly, you can’t beat that kind of combination.

“This marked the first time since the third quarter of 2008 where revenue in the current quarter increased over the corresponding quarter in the prior year.” –Henry Gerkens, chairman, president and CEO of Landstar System, Inc.

While the improvements in the freight market are nowhere near universal – LTL carriers, in particular, will still find rough waters ahead – things seem to be improving out there. While many carriers might not agree, reports from several of their peers seem to indicate better days might finally (at long last) be arriving.

“The freight environment continues to improve,” noted Henry Gerkens, chairman, president and CEO of Landstar System, Inc., in the carrier’s first quarter earnings report. “Recent trends in March, and thus far in April, indicate that both the revenue per load and the number of loads hauled remain strong compared to the corresponding prior year periods. I expect these trends to continue throughout the 2010 second quarter.”

Landstar said its revenue increase 17% to $548.1 million in the first quarter, this year, up from $469.2 million in the same quarter during 2009. Net income also popped up in the first quarter, to $17.2 million compared to $13.9 million in the same period last year.

“This marked the first time since the third quarter of 2008 where revenue in the current quarter increased over the corresponding quarter in the prior year,” Gerkins said. “That … was primarily the result of an 18% increase in the number of loads hauled, which was partly offset by lower revenue per load of approximately 2%, compared to the first quarter of 2009.”

As an aside, Gerkins pointed out that the number of loads hauled by Landstar’s owner-operators during the month of March this year was the highest number of loads hauled by them in March of any year in Landstar’s history. “Also, in March 2010, we experienced the first month-over-prior-year-month increase in revenue per load on freight hauled by Landstar’s [owner-operators] since 2008.”

“We expected the first quarter to be the most challenging of 2010 as the economic recovery gathered steam through the year,” said Kurt Kuehn, chief financial officer for United Parcel Service. “As it turned out, revenue was stronger than we expected due to international volume gains, increased yields in the U.S. and growth in [freight] forwarding and logistics [operations]. Also, the operating leverage in our streamlined network provided higher margins than anticipated.”

Kuehn said things are so much better that UPS boosted its earnings per share by 37% for the first quarter of 2010 – to 71 cents per diluted share compared to 52 cents per share in the same period in 2009. That’s because UPS’s consolidated revenue for the first quarter grew 7%, driven by increases of 18% in its international package and 14% in supply chain and freight divisions.

UPS’s international daily volumes grew significantly with export up more than 9% and non-U.S. domestic up over 24%. While U.S. domestic daily volume increased less than 1%, it was the first year-over-year growth in domestic volumes in more than two years, Kuehn pointed out.

“We’re definitely seeing positive trends in [truck capacity] demand developing,” Brett Terchila, director of operations for truckload carrier Transport America, told me. “It’s not a completely solid demand uptick, but we’re definitely seeing more consistent freight volumes now week to week.”

As a result, Transport America was able to “seat” 50 more trucks over the last four weeks.

“We’re seeing in particular significant demand from ‘ad hoc’ freight and that brokers are paying higher, as well paying to reposition equipment,” Terchila added. “Shipper inventories remain low, so they will have to start restocking. As a result, our truck utilization rates – both month-over-month and year-over-year – are definitely increasing.”

All I can say is, let’s hope these trends continue to strengthen.