OK, I recently spent a few months visiting my mom in Michigan. I drove.
While driving, I was thinking about improving fuel efficiency because that's how I roll, literally.
First Way:
Drafting: I was noticing as I was driving that trucks for the most part were staggered down the highway. Not good.
Drafting can improve fuel efficiency by as much as 30%--depending on whether or not there's a headwind. Tour de France riders always ride in a line because of drafting. It's the difference between winning and losing the tour. For a trucker, it could be the difference between bankruptcy and profitability, and it's a pretty simple concept.
I conducted a simple experiment when I drove up to Michigan kind of by accident. I drafted the entire way up. I tried to get behind truckers, who were going 70 mph--they were breaking the speed limit, I wasn't. I only filled up my tank with gas 4 times.
On the way back, I didn't draft at all. I filled up my tank with gas 5 times.
It costs me $45 bucks to fill up my tank, which is about what it costs to sleep in a cheap motel.
Diesel costs $4 a gallon. (I don't know how many miles a year, or miles per gallon, but I do know, if drafting was applied, truckers would be saving a shitload of money on an annual basis--more than ten thousand dollars per trucker per year.)
You don't even need to be right up the other trucks ass either--just far enough back to where the air is still moving forward.
In today's world, where most trucks with the big trucking outfits have GPS trackers, it is possible to build a software to track trucks and give drivers, who spend time being drafted or drafting behind other trucks a bonus. The bonus would give truckers an incentive to draft. An independent trucker wouldn't need much more incentive other than the extra money in his pocket.
Second Way:
Solar Panels: Every truck on the road has a giant flat space on the roof of the trailer--approximately 1,000 sq. ft. This huge space could be converted into a very large solar panel. It could power a motor to provide a little extra push, and possibly an extra 20% gain in fuel efficiency. Or, it could power the refrigerator and other electrical components--also, improving fuel efficiency by just as much.
Third Way:
Improved Aerodynamics: The back of every truck has a big flat space. It's quite possibly the least aerodynamic design you could have. It might as well be a freakin parachute. If that flat space was converted to a cone shape, trucks would get possibly 10 to 20% more fuel efficiency.
Consider the numbers:
Well, OK, let's think about some numbers. 20% is a big deal. 30% is an even bigger deal. 40% is fucking huge. Boeing started putting flipped up wing tips on jets because that little flip created better aerodynamics and translated into $10's of millions of dollars each year in fuel savings for the airlines.
How much money is being wasted in the trucking industry by neglecting a few simple things? I would bet it's in the billions.
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