![]() Date: 2025-02-13 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00009630 | |||||||||
Issue ... Energy | |||||||||
Burgess COMMENTARY | |||||||||
CLEAN VEHICLES ... FUEL EFFICIENCY
Engines for Change (2015)
Infographic on heavy-duty truck standards
Unlike passenger cars and other light-duty vehicles, the fuel economy of heavy-duty vehicles has been largely unregulated for decades. Tractor trailers, delivery vans, and other heavy-duty trucks have kept roughly the same fuel economy since the 1970s—just 6 miles per gallon. Years of non-regulation and slow investment now mean that heavy-duty vehicles consume 25 percent of all fuel, despite only accounting for 7 percent of vehicles on the road. First-ever standards were finally passed in 2011, putting in place a series of fuel economy targets for different types of vehicles—but more can be done.
Using existing, affordable technology, new trucks could be up to 40 percent more efficient compared to today, reducing annual fuel consumption by billions of gallons and preventing millions of metric tons of global warming emissions. For truckers, fleet operators, and America’s largest companies—including Walmart, Coke, Pepsi, UPS, and FedEx—a strong federal standard also means good business: annual shipping costs could fall by at least $135 per American household, and likely much more.
Trucks impact everyone
From your cell phone to your food to the clothes on your back, nearly every product you use has been on a truck. In the United States, trucks move more than $10 trillion worth of freight every year, consuming over 21 billion gallons of fuel in the process—almost 70 gallons for every U.S. resident.
The fuel associated with shipping various consumer goods
Click to enlarge. Better fuel standards would cut the carbon footprint of consumer goods.
Even small everyday items have substantial fuel footprints. Cell phones use nearly half a million gallons of fuel to ship every year; shoes and diapers require over 2 million gallons each. Heavier liquid commodities like beer and wine require tens of millions more gallons (62.8 million and 10.9 million, respectively), while it takes over 260 million gallons of fuel to ship fuel itself.
Increasing the fuel efficiency of heavy-duty vehicles would lessen the environmental and economic impacts of shipping these commodities. For the average consumer, stronger standards would translate to fewer global warming emissions associated with the products we use and love, and more affordable shipping as companies realize the cost-saving benefits of using less fuel.
Cleaner fleets, better business
How standards could cut the fuel use of the heavy-duty trucks used by fleets
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