Logic and reason seem not to apply in the world of internal combustion engines.
While binge watching 2005 to 2010 episodes of Top Gear, I came to some conclusions about internal combustion engines. Innovative automotive engineers have spent an inordinate amount of money and time developing supercar engines that can run in very few places in North America.
Case in point, Audi’s penultimate Veyron with a top speed north of 250 mph, the Porsche Cayman at perhaps 160+ mph, the Lamborghini Murcielago at more than 200 mph, the Koenigsegg over 240 mph, etc.
I live in a town with posted speed limits of 25 mph and the local highway tops out at 50 mph. The nearest racetrack, a dirt oval, is more than 100 miles away. I think the nearest paved track is 250 miles away.
Yet driving down that main street, I’ve seen more than a few high-end Porsches, a few Audis, a raft of Tesla S’s and Y’s, and an endless collection of proud owners running 1950 to 1970s American muscle cars. There are not a lot of straight roads in my part of the world, so Jeremy Clarkson would make fun of the Detroit iron, but it’s hard not to smile when you hear (and feel and smell) them go by.
I used to live near the Texas Motor Speedway near Fort Worth. Car clubs would occasionally get track time. I recall riding in a 1966 Buick at about 90 mph on the high banked track, pinned to the passenger door as the 1960s vintage bench seat and single lap seat belt did not restrain me much. I recall taking a tour of the speedway in a 15-person van at very high speed, looking down the slope of the 20 to 24 degree banked corners. It was probably one of the few 15 person vans in the U.S. that has topped 75.
My wife gifted me 10 laps driving a racing stockcar at the speedway years ago as a birthday present. The car was governed at 150 mph. At the time, you needed to go through additional training and pay more if you wanted to go faster. In my humble opinion, 150 mph is “fast enough” if you don’t have much experience driving on a speedway.
The fastest I legally drove on any highway in Texas was 85 mph. The top speed of my pick-up was somewhere around 115 mph, and the speedometer realistically topped out at 120 mph. Most of my many Texas highway miles were below 65 mph. I also had many painful trips inching at less than 5 mph for miles on some interstates around big cities.
Did I need an engine capable of 115 mph in my pick-up? Probably not; I never used the top end above 85 mph. Shame on me, right? I never took it on a racetrack or sprinted on a dragstrip. I had the truck for 15 years; it probably was an oversight on my part to never push the limits with it. I just used it as a truck.
I recently reviewed a 2014 video series about the Peterbilt/Cummins SuperTruck, the first of the Department of Energy SuperTrucks to reach the public eye. The truck and trailer, together, moved down the road at well below 200 HP moving 65,000 lbs. of GVW at 65 mph in Texas. It also did pretty well in the mountains in Arkansas loaded at 80,000 lbs. The engine was a 15L Cummins souped up with a variety of technologies to help get every bit of performance out of the fuel.
The SuperTruck diesel powertrain was more than capable of breaking posted speed limits fully loaded at 80,000 lbs. We probably had a couple of Top Gear’s Stig’s cousins in the driver seat during testing, but we never put the SuperTruck on the Texas speedway track to find the top speed. I’m sure corporate lawyers would have had some issues, but the marketing people would have cheered.
Overkill is one term that comes to mind in spec’ing powertrains for vehicles. Sometimes there is just more truck than needed, as architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said, “less is more.”
At other times, more is better. In one of NACFE’s recent Run on Less fleet interviews a fleet that hauls at 140,000 lbs. explained that when climbing 6% grades their diesel and CNG trucks might be at 20 mph. And they feel that is an accomplishment of the technology.
I’ve seen fleets that ordered their “worst case” semi: a 6x4 sleeper with a big engine and high enough content to ensure a high residual value at trade-in, having no clue what the next buyer might be using it for. Their truck spec provided them security in volatile times, allowing them to use their truck in every possible market opportunity since they had no control over the market.
You can use a high horsepower sleeper 6x4 to fill in for a Class 7 4x2 day cab, but you can’t go the other way.
I think, for some fleets, it is sound business decision-making to invest in a vehicle capable of operating in a variety of duty cycles in unsure market conditions. But for others, the worst-case truck spec is overkill — too much truck for their needs.
That’s the nature of the freight business — there are many ways to do the job, many opinions, tradeoffs and choices. Some make money, some don’t. Some fleets survive the tough times, others disappear.
A trend NACFE and others have reported on is a reduction in length of haul. In recent years, there has been a greater emphasis on getting drivers home each night to improve driver hiring and retention. Often this means a day cab is satisfactory. The occasional overnight route requires a hotel. Fleets and drivers have both been moving toward this model as more warehousing is moving closer to delivery points. Nearshoring is going to compound this trend as manufacturing may move closer to consumers.
I’ve often stated there are no average trucks, no average routes, no average drivers or loads. Every fleet has its own mix of needs. Fleets have to decide on their own truck specs in the shifting tides of an unpredictable freight market.
They need to make tough decisions between “good enough” and “overkill” truck specs. Those decisions also inevitably effect the used market as those new trucks change hands.
The influx of the many powertrain choices, many fuel type choices, day cab vs. sleeper, cab-over vs. conventional, aerodynamic vs traditional, more OEMs than ever before, unpredictable regulations, etc. makes buying and selling trucks very challenging.
NACFE calls this period the Messy Middle. In August you will see a steady release of fleet profiles including videos for the 13 fleets taking part in Run on Less – Messy Middle. The Run dashboard is nearing completion and in September will provide public access to the performance of the different technologies in their real-world operations. These include diesels, natural gas, hydrogen fuel cell and battery electric semi-trucks doing daily long distances. Stay engaged at www.RunonLess.com.
