Mack Releases a Fuel Savings Calculator for Its New Engine & How To Improve Fuel Economy

As we've noted many times, the primary drivers for technological change in the automotive and transportation industries for the past half century have been fuel savings and reduced emissions. In the automobile side of the equation, fuels savings have been achieved through a variety of ways including the use of lighter materials or making cars smaller, fine tuning aerodynamics,  (See 10 Ways Automakers Are Helping You Spend Less Money On Gas)

The trucking industry has also been on a decades-long effort at continuous improvement in these areas. Even if advanaces are only incremental, they add up over time, much like compound interest in the Warren Buffet portfolio. 

Last fall Mack Trucks introduced a 13-liter Mack MP8HE engine that the company says improves fuel efficiency by up to 3% compared to the current MP8HE. One of the new features on this new engine is a fuel savings calculator for this MP8HE+ powertrain package. The fuel savings calculator can be accessed on its website here:
https://info.macktrucks.com/mackonomics

The article that drew our attention to this was David Sickels' piece in Fleet Equipment last week. He wrote:

The fuel savings calculator allows Mack website visitors to select fleet size, number of trucks in their fleet and the average cost per gallon of diesel fuel. The information is used to calculate the average amount a customer could save over one, three or five years with the Mack MP8HE+ powertrain package, the company says.Mack said that the next generation of its 13-liter MP8HE engine improved fuel efficiency by up to 3% when compared with the former MP8HE engine. Included in the MP8HE+ powertrain package are the MP8HE engine, Mack mDRIVE automated manual transmission, Mack Predictive Cruise and multiple aerodynamic enhancements.

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Since we're on the subject of fuel economy, here's another good article How to Improve Fuel Economy in a Truck. As noted above, it's all about incremental improvements in every facet of the truck, including the manner in which you drive it. According to Rowe, optimizing fuel use can reduce operating costs by as much as 20%. Considering that the trucking industry spends as much as 105 billion dollars on fuel alone, imagine the savings if every carrier cut 20% off their fuel costs. That's over 20 billion dollars a year.

Here are the 10 recommendations. A link to the full article follows. It's worth your time because it goes into details on each of these points.

1. Stop Speeding
2. Reduce Aggressive Driving
3. Cut Down on Idling
4. Stay Tuned Up
5. Keep Tires Inflated
6. Get More Efficient Routes
7. Cool It With the AC
8. Ditch Extra Weight 
9. Turn Down the Heat
10. Get Fleet Management Software

Many of these we know already. Most also apply to Owner Operators.

Actually, later in the article Rowe states that these tips can save up to 30% on fuel costs and improve MPG from 6 to near 8.5 MPG per vehicle. You can probably calculate how many trips to the moon and back you'd get on those savings.

Here is the link to the full story:
https://tech.co/fleet-management/truck-fuel-economy