The North American Council for Freight Efficiency reports overall fuel economy rose 1% in 2016, the ninth year in a row trucking fleets in the study have recorded an increase.
In its 2017 Annual Fleet Fuel Study, NACFE’s covered 19 fleets operating more than 71,000 tractors and 234,000 trailers. According to NACFE, some 2017 model trucks achieved 7.8-9.2 mpg, with some reportedly approaching 10 mpg.
“We are thrilled to see that fleets are still seeing fuel economy improvements from their investments,” said Mike Roeth, executive director of NACFE. “While gains are smaller than in the past, any improvement in fuel economy curbs the fleet’s expenses.”
Year-over-year gains have been greater than in the most recent report. Average fleet fuel economy rose, for example, 3% between 2014 and 2015. NACFE gave a variety of reasons for the flatter curve, including fleets eliminating some technologies that improved fuel efficiency, a reduced focus on fuel efficiency due to lower fuel prices, increased speed, older trucks, and even a hotter than average summer in 2016.
In total, NACFE identified 85 currently available technologies for fleets to increase fuel economy in this study.
You can download the full report by clicking here.