Fuel economy targets have been set for small vehicles, which inclues anything under 8,500 lbs.) for many decades. But now for the first time ever the Obama administration is attempting to set fuel-economy standards on trucks, buses and tractors. The goal they want the Industry to achieve is for all trucks to be 20% more fuel efficient by 2018.
This is such an important issue to address because although trucks over 8,500 lbs. only make up 3% of the vehicle fleet, they consume over 15% of the fuel. For example, a garbage truck takes 5 miles per gallon, while traveling on average 20,000 miles per year...thats means they consume over 3,600 gallons a year! With the implementations of these electric and hydraulic hybrids they are expected to save 1,100gallons of fuel within the first year.
Although it seems that there are only positive consequences to this change, that is not the case. Because of the new technological advances that will be needed to improve the fuel-economy, the expected cost of the improvements come out to 7.7 billion.
in order to bounce-back from this outstanding debt, they will raise the prices significantly to make sure the buyers recover the cost within the first year. The American Truck Dealers Association cautions that this plan will deter many small market buyers from purchasing trucks. But others argue that on average, a truck driver will save 74,000 over the span of a trucks life. These enormous savings should bring back and buyers that may have been in doubt.
At first a higher price tag on trucks, buses, and other heavy vehicles may make buyers question their purchase, but in the end I feel that they will realize that will save money. Before making a purchase they will speak to the sellers and they will eventually understand that they will save the money they would've normally put towards gasoline and spend half of it on the vehicle itself, and just pocket the rest. This idea to up the fuel efficiency standards is a fantastic plan to keep our overall fuel usage down.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303467004575574251198447096.html?KEYWORDS=all+electric
I think it's great that trucks are finally being pushed to have higher fuel efficiency standards. Because trucks are on the road all the time, saving fuel there means the truck owners would quickly earn back the money they used for the expensive trucks. I had no idea that garbage trucks only get 5 miles per gallon. Because they stop and go constantly, a mechanism used in the Prius where the car generates energy when it brakes could be very useful. It's good to hear that the government continues to push for higher fuel efficiency even when the economy is doing poorly.
ReplyDeleteThat is a really astonishing fact about the garbage trucks. No one really thought of establishing MPGs for them and its great that people are finally talking about it.
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