NRC Report Recommends Ways to Regulate and Improve Fuel Economy of Tractor-Trailers, Buses, Work...

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12845

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12845">Read Full Report

Date: March 31, 2010
Contacts: Sara Frueh, Media Relations Officer
Alison Burnette, Media Relations Assistant
Office of News and Public Information
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Report Recommends Ways to Regulate and Improve Fuel Economy of Tractor-Trailers, Buses, Work Trucks, and Other Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles

WASHINGTON -- A new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council evaluates various technologies and methods that could improve the fuel economy of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, such as tractor-trailers, transit buses, and work trucks. The report also recommends approaches that federal agencies could use to regulate these vehicles' fuel consumption. Currently there are no fuel consumption standards for such vehicles, which account for about 26 percent of the transportation fuel used in the U.S.

"The choices that will be made over the course of the next few years will establish the regulatory design for medium- and heavy-duty vehicle fuel consumption standards for the next several decades," said Andrew Brown Jr., chair of the committee that wrote the report, and executive director and chief technologist at Delphi Corp., Troy, Mich. In 2007 Congress passed legislation requiring the U.S. Department of Transportation for the first time in history to establish fuel economy standards for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked the National Research Council to recommend the best ways to measure and regulate fuel economy for these vehicles, and assess technologies that could improve it.

The committee estimated the improvements that various technologies could achieve over the next decade in seven vehicle types. For example, using advanced diesel engines in tractor-trailers could lower their fuel consumption by up to 20 percent by 2020, and improved aerodynamics could yield an 11 percent reduction. Hybrid powertrains could lower the fuel consumption of vehicles that stop frequently, such as garbage trucks and transit buses, by as much 35 percent in the same time frame. While the cost of making these improvements would be passed on to vehicle purchasers, the report notes that many of these suites of technologies would pay for themselves even at today’s energy prices, under the committee’s assumptions.

The report also estimates the costs and maximum fuel savings that could be achieved for each type of vehicle by 2020 if a combination of technologies were used. The best cost-benefit ratio was offered by tractor-trailers, whose fuel use could be cut by about 50 percent for about $84,600 per truck; the improvements would be cost-effective over ten years provided gas prices are at least $1.10 per gallon. The fuel use of motor coaches could be lowered by 32 percent for an estimated $36,350 per bus, which would be cost-effective if the price of fuel is $1.70 per gallon or higher. For other vehicle classes, the financial investments in making improvements would be cost-effective at higher prices of fuel.

In setting fuel consumption standards, regulators should use a measure that accounts for the amount of freight or passengers carried by these vehicles, the report says. The miles-per-gallon measure used to regulate the fuel economy of passenger cars (light-duty vehicles) is not appropriate for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, which are designed above all to carry loads efficiently, the report says. For example, a partially loaded tractor-trailer could travel more miles per gallon than a fully loaded one, but this would not be an accurate measure of the fuel efficiency of moving goods.

Instead, any regulation of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles should use a metric that reflects the efficiency with which a vehicle moves goods or passengers, such as gallons per ton-mile, a unit that reflects the amount of fuel a vehicle would use to carry a ton of goods one mile. This is called load-specific fuel consumption (LSFC).

The report does not recommend a specific numerical standard because NHTSA will need to establish standards tied to the task associated with a particular type of vehicle; garbage trucks might be held to a different standard than transit buses, for example. NHTSA should base its regulations on national data on the average payload carried by each type of vehicle. The agency should regulate the final-stage vehicle manufacturers rather than component makers, as the former has the greatest control over the vehicle's design, the report adds. "Our committee also recommends that NHTSA conduct a pilot program to 'test drive' the certification process and validate the regulatory framework," said Brown.

While regulating medium- and heavy-duty vehicles will be more complicated than it is for passenger cars because of the variety of vehicles and their differing tasks and terrains, the barriers are not insurmountable, the report says. Japan regulates the fuel economy of these vehicles, and both the European Union and the state of California are developing standards.

However, one way to avoid the complexity of regulating different types of vehicles would be to impose a fuel tax, which would induce firms to optimize the fuel-efficiency of their operations. The report urges Congress to consider this approach. Another alternative approach -- applying a cap-and-trade system to trucking companies similar to the one that Congress is considering as a way to lower CO2 emissions -- would similarly provide these companies with an incentive to adopt fuel-saving technologies and operational methods.

In addition, the report recommends nontechnical methods NHTSA could use to lower fuel consumption, including providing incentives to train vehicle operators in efficient driving techniques, which can result in fuel savings of anywhere from 2 percent to 17 percent. One approach could be to establish a process to train and certify drivers in these techniques as part of commercial driver license certification.

The study was sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter. The Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. A committee roster follows.


Copies of http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12845">Technologies and Approaches to Reducing the Fuel Consumption of Medium and Heavy-Duty Vehicles are available from the National Academies Press; tel. [phone] or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu. Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).

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[SocialistLez]

1. PLEASE improve their fuel efficiencies

I see so many people in trucks in this area and most of these people don't haul anything most days out the year.
They just like the look.

That's all fine and good but my lungs and my head don't appreciate the ridiculous amount of exhaust that these vehicles spew out.

Can we PLEASE get a move on and build up a transit system?
I like electric vehicles and everything but I'd also like to be able to ride a bus or light rail.

[JohnWxy]

2. It's truly amazing how Ethanol Boosting Systems engine which can get 30% efficiency improvement

seems to not exist!


http://www.ethanolboost.com/EBS_summary_2-10-09.pdf


Ethanol Boosting Systems (EBS), an MIT spinoff company, is commercializing a near-term solution for high fuel efficiency in cars and light duty trucks at an affordable cost.

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DI Alcohol boosting provides a much more cost effective way to meet higher fuel efficiency CAFE and possible California CO2 emission standards for cars and light duty trucks than the clean diesel or hybrid propulsion solutions. The cost effectiveness of a high efficiency solution can be measured by the ratio of incremental cost (relative to today’s port fuel injected engines) to percent fuel savings. This metric provides both a measure of economic attractiveness to the consumer and a means for determining the cost per gram of CO2 reduction. The cost / % fuel savings for DI alcohol boosted gasoline engines is around 25- 30% of the ratio for the hybrid and clean diesel solutions. At present US gasoline prices, the fuel savings back payback time is around 4 years in contrast to more than 12 years for these other solutions.

DI alcohol boosting enables an energy efficiency and torque in gasoline engines comparable to turbo diesel engines and can provide significantly higher power. Because of their high efficiency and performance, turbo diesel engines are used in around half of the new cars produced in Europe. However, the use of diesel engines in cars and light duty trucks in the US has been very limited due to the high levels of pollutants generated by diesel engines and the resulting need for new, complex and expensive treatment systems. A higher price of diesel fuel relative to gasoline can be another drawback. EBS technology can provide the benefits of diesel engines without these drawbacks.

DI alcohol boosting is a new combination of existing technologies and can be deployed on production vehicles at affordable cost within four years. Because of its affordability, it makes possible large volume market penetration of high fuel efficiency cars and light duty trucks in the near term. It does not require reinvention of the car or costly retooling of existing plants.
In addition, DI Alcohol Boosted gasoline engines could also be used to further improve the efficiency and lower the cost of longer-term solutions such as conventional hybrids and plug-in hybrids.


EBS has been working in collaboration with Ford Motor Company. Engine tests at Ford support the EBS projections for the performance and efficiency gains that can be provided by DI alcohol boosted engines. EBS technology provides the lowest cost and most rapid means for America to reduce oil dependence and CO2 emissions from vehicles. It can greatly accelerate the mass-market deployment of high fuel efficiency cars and light trucks and reduction of oil dependence. It also provides a way for American industry to pioneer a new automotive technology in a way that is analogous to the pioneering of hybrid vehicles by Japanese companies and diesel engine cars by European companies. This new technology could help in the revitalization of the American automobile industry.

EBS technology can also provide substantially improved engine technology for medium and heavy duty vehicles. In comparison to diesel engine technology, DI Alcohol boost can be used as a lower cost, cleaner solution for meeting more stringent emission requirements, particularly recent California regulations, for medium –heavy duty trucks and buses. In addition to these advantages, DI alcohol boost can provide considerably more horsepower for a given level of torque and fuel efficiency.

[One_Life_To_Give]

3. $30,000/yr Diesel and they need incentives?

Most tractor trailer rigs should be in excess of 100,000miles per year. Which equates to over 10,000 gallons of diesel burned at current efficiencies. I would be very surprised that the Roadways, Pacific Intermountain etc. of the world aren't very interested in anything that will reduce a 5yr lifetime cost, if not 10 yr.