I got home on Tuesday and will be off until Monday. I need to take some time off so I can take care of my wife Karen for a few days due to her having back surgery on Wednesday. The surgery went well and I am hoping that she has a speedy recovery.

Till next time,

Henry

I am reflecting on my past few days at GATS all the information that I gleaned from the truck show. I met a lot of new and interesting people from all walks of life. I was also able to attend and participate in many events.

I seems that there is becoming a lot of battery powered heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems coming to market. I all ready have the Park Smart on my 2011 Cascadia and I have been very pleased with the performance of this system. It has its limitations but if used properly the system is very quiet, low maintenance system compared to having an auxiliary powers unit (APU). 

 The main limitaion of the Park Smart system is the 34 hour restart which runs the system out of battery.  As more and more of these battery powered HVAC systems become more main stream it only seems that shore power will be readily available in the future. Imagine in the future a silent truck stop with the only engines running is reefers and trucks that were entering or leaving.

I also attended a seminar on future technoligy and much of the focus is on efficiency and capturing more and more of the energy in our fuel. There appears to be different methods on trying to obtain this mission and Detroit Diesel all ready has technology on the market today. The DD15 and DD16 have turbo compounding on them to recover part of the energy that is left in the heat of the exhaust. In the past more of the energy content in the fuel was simply wasted as it went up the stacks.

I met many people who are as interested as I am in operating as efficienty as possible and as you can imagine were very lengthy and they were of particular interest to me.  For more information on fuel how I get my outstanding  fuel mileage  see my blog on http://sliceoftruckerlife.com/blogs/henry-albert/2010/08/01/all-the-little-things-add-up .

I had my DDEC reports along with me and I shared them with many attendees. I always inform everyone that my numbers on the DDEC are 2.5 tenths less then this report indicates. I also inform them that am not loaded heavy most of the time and my normal load weight is between 20,000 and 30,000 pounds.  Most of my routes are not mountainous.  I cruise at 65 mph were applicable and the trucks life time average is 8.6 mpg.

I also had a few conversations with people who stopped by to talk about the Cascadia and this led to conversations about their futures in the trucking industry. One couple in particular who were looking at getting their own operating authority sticks out in my mind as I was once in their shoes.

I was very fortunate when I was starting to have this question asked of me “Why would anyone use you?”.  When I was preparing to get my own authority I spent close to two years talking with a representative of the Small Business Association (SBA). This man had me put together a business plan, a backup to my business plan, and a backup to the backup of my business plan. That all seemed excessive at that time but proved invaluable after starting on my own. After I had all this competed I will never forget as my mentor sat back in his chair, kicked his feet up on the desk and then said “you have everything in order now, I have shared your plan with many of your peers and now answer this, why would anyone use you to haul their freight?” I paused for a second and he put his hand up to stop me and said “I do not even want to hear it now you took to long and told me to come see him next week and have good answers to why anyone would use your services”.  This exercise proved to be the most valuable thing to happen to me as I prepared to operate my own trucking business.  I shared what I learned from my mentor with this couple and I hope I gave them time to pause and think. 

Rick Ash Myself Mike Reilly Linda Bob Caffee Scott Kinley

I attended a cornucopia of events this year at the truck show.  I participated in the  To Hot to Trot 5k and was able to run on the Katy Trail system and I also walked in the HTAA Health Awareness Walk.  I also attended the GATS Future Truck Technologies SUPERSession which was  very interesting.  I opened up the Partners in Business Seminar with a small presentation on what my approach is in respect to professional appearance.  I shared with the audience that my best return on investment of anything I have done in my business has been the simple addition of a tie to my uniform.  For more information on this see my blog http://sliceoftruckerlife.com/blogs/henry-albert/2009/08/05/are-you-a-driver/ 

Slice of Trucker Life drivers with Freightliner representatives

It was very nice spending time with my fellow Slice of Trucker Life colleagues, Dick McCorkle, Kurt Grote, and Gina Angsten as we are not often at the same location at the same time. This our first all being together since the launch of the new Slice of Trucker Life season.

As always I enjoyed attending this show, I pick up a load on Monday  heading for home.

Hello Again,

I am in Dallas preparing for the Great American Truck Show (GATS) which starts August 26^thThe trucks are all being cleaned up and prepared for the show.  Gina’s will be in the main Freightliner booth, Dicks, Kurt’s and my truck will be next to the Pride and Polish area. All of the Slice of Life Truck drivers will be rotating between the area next to the Pride and Polish and the main Freightliner booth.  I always enjoy meeting new people at the shows and this is no expectation, stop by and say hello.

  The days leading up to the show I have been spending time with the staff from ATC Freightliner talking to them and their clients about the results I have been achieving with my 2011 Cascadia.  ATC Freightliner is located on I20 Exit 472 Bonnie View Rd south of the TA.

  ATC Freightliner has all amenities for the driver and their pets.  There are nice dog kennels, showers, laundry, stadium style seating in the TV area, and a nice break room.  A state of the art shop that is clean with the latest technological diagnostic equipment available today with an extensively stocked parts department. Stop in and check out ATC Freightliner.

 I will also be attending the HTAA Health Awareness Walk on Saturday August 28^th.  You can pre register for the walk at Driverhealth.org, click on the +61 logo.  You can also register for the walk at booth #23167, HTAA Health, Wellness, and Safety Pavilion.  Stop by the booth on Thursday to meet with my fellow members of The Trucking Solutions Group Driver Health Council. The 1.5 mile walk is free and will be inside the climate controlled convention center.  We will be starting the walk in room D-168 with warm up exercises led by Bob Perry, The Trucker Trainer.  I look forward to walking with you!

I will also be doing a short presentation on dressing for success during the Partners In Business workshop Friday August 27 2:00. Look in your show information for the workshop room number.

 Henry

I took a shipment from Charlotte, NC to Janesville, Wisconsin earlier this week. My load weighted approximately 30,000 lbs. My route went through the smokey mountains and up  interstate 75 out of Knoxville. This week I’m using a new GPS system in the truck. In the past, I’ve always used a map and ;some common sense. The GPS took me on a goat path during the last part of my trip, which knocked quite a bit off my fuel mileage. I ended up with 8.07 mpg on my trip. This wasn’t as high as my previous 9 mpg, however, I was happy with it under the conditions in which I ran.

I stopped to visit Truck Country Freightliner in Kaukauna, Wisconsin. Dan Armstrong and his staff were quite accommodating. Here is where I cleaned the truck and made preparations to attend the Waupun Truck Show. En route to the show, just south of Oshkosh, Wisconsin at the intersection of 26 and 41, I made a stop at the Planeview Truck Stop. I only had time to grab a cup of coffee but would have like to had time to eat in the restaurant. The facilities looked clean and well maintained. I’m a big fan of the “Mom and Pop” type restaurants.

On Thursday, everyone set up for the show. Friday the show got off to a rainy start and the crowds were low due to the weather.The activities were canceled as well. The sun came out on Saturday with approximately 400 trucks at the show. Plenty of food, games and exhibitor displays filled the empty space. I enjoyed meeting the salespeople from the surrounding truck country dealerships. A parade took place on Saturday evening. Gina Angston, one of the Slice of Trucker Life drivers won “Best Vinyl Graphics” with her new Cascadia. Congratulations Gina!

This was my first time to attend the Waupun Truck Show. I look forward to going back again. Take care… until next time.

Henry

This blog was inspired by a comment from Bob Johnson on my last blog. His question was “Does excessive use of jake brakes waste fuel?” The answer to that question is yes and so does excessive use of your foundation brakes. This blog is going to be on where does all the energy from the fuel in your tank go. I spoke to an engineer friend of mine today and the following is what I learned.  The first thing was, which has nothing to do with fuel efficiency, is why he makes the big bucks!

You start out with 100% energy, which comes from burning all the fuel from your tank inside your engine. The combustion inside the engine turns that fuel into two things: heat and work. Heat (thermal energy) is what you do not want and work (mechanical energy) is what you do want.

 In a state of the art, modern heavy duty truck diesel engine, 57% of the fuel energy gets converted into heat, which only warms up the environment.  15% of the 57% is lost in exhaust gases, 39% is lost to the engine cooling system, to the charge air cooler, as well as heat radiating from the block. The last 3% of the 57% you lose driving accessories necessary to operate the engine such as the water pump, the oil pump and the fuel injection pump.

So we have 43% of the fuel energy left that is converted into mechanical energy to power the crank shaft, but we are not ready to go trucking down the road yet! Here is what comes out of the 43%.  We use 1% to drive accessories that are not necessary to operate the engine but rather the truck in a safe and comfortable manner. These include the alternator, the power steering pump, the air compressor, the fan and the air conditioning unit. In the case of a modern, state of the art aerodynamic truck with a standard dry van trailer we lose 19% of that mechanical energy to push the air under, over and around the truck. This 19% is known as aerodynamic drag. Approximately another 16% of the mechanical energy is used to deform the tires as they roll over the road surface under the weight of your truck. This last 16% is known as rolling resistance. Then another 3% is lost through friction in the drive train: transmission, drive shafts and driven axles.  The final 4% of the mechanical energy is used for braking.

This is where Bob Johnsons question about engine brake use comes in to play. This 4% of mechanical energy gets converted back into heat by the engine brake, engine drag torque and foundation brakes.  We all know we have to brake every now and then, so what can be helped here is eliminating the hard, excessive and unnecessary braking. The reason for this is the mechanical energy generated in the engine by combusting your fuel propels your truck forward. Braking converts this forward energy back into heat inside your brake systems. After you are finished braking, that heat is lost and it requires new fuel to be burned to propel you forward again.  All these figures are for a state of the art aerodynamic tractor and power train with the average dry van trailer in a typical US line haul operation.

Now we need to think about how we use these figures to increase the efficiency of our operation.  I like to think of how I drive my truck as the management of energy – heat and work that is. When you accelerate to a higher speed than you need between lights and have to hit the brakes hard for a red light this makes your productive use of mechanical energy low. Stopping unnecessarily is hard on your fuel consumption as well as stopping at the bottom of hills. Backing out of the throttle early and coasting into red lights and stop signs is one easy way to save fuel. I try to take my rest breaks on top of a hill. This way I can use the hill to slow down on the way up, and in the morning I use the downgrade of the hill to give me free energy to get going instead of solely relying on my engine. Rain, wind, and cold dense air all affect these numbers either adversely or positively from what was given to me.

This knowledge of energy management does not only help me in operating my truck but gives me a greater appreciation on the way my truck is spec’d. Let me explain. The engine in my Cascadia uses SCR after treatment exhaust system. I like this system because it converts more of the fuel energy into work and less into heat as compared to a non-SCR engine / exhaust system.  Another think I really like about the truck is the Detroit Diesel DD15 use of turbo compounding. Turbo Compounding is used to recycle some of the heat in the exhaust gases and turn that heat into useful work powering the crankshaft. All of this increases my engine’s conversion of fuel into mechanical energy.

When Freightliner gave me the opportunity to spec out my dream truck for fuel mileage, I took into consideration whatever kills bugs pushes against the air and costs fuel. I spec’d an aerodynamic cab, left out bug killers such as hood mounted mirrors, bug deflector, and the sun visor, and equipped it with side, top and bottom aerodynamic devices. I optimized the trailer gap and equipped the trailer with a nose cone and side skirts. I did all of this to minimize the use of mechanical energy to push to air around my truck and trailer.

I then picked the latest Michelin wide based single tires on my truck and trailer, and energy efficient Michelin steer tires. This tire package offers the lowest rolling resistance available today.  

As for my drive train I selected a 6 X 2 axle configuration which uses one undriven axle instead of a typical tandem drive axle. This axle configuration reduces the amount of mechanical energy that gets converted into heat due to friction in the drive axles.

Last but not least I paid attention to spec’ing light weight components such as an aluminum cab, aluminum wheels on tractor and trailer, single exhaust pipe, aluminum fifth wheel, etc. More weight directly increases the amount of mechanical energy that gets converted into heat by the braking systems.

So as you can see there are many ways you can increase your fuel efficiency.

So in ending I would like to thank Bob Johnson for giving me the inspiration to research this subject and in closing here is a site that explains more on how this works including some graphics

http://www.ftexploring.com/energy/first-law_p2.html

Henry

This week, I was able to attain my goal of hitting 9 mpg. on the new Cascadia. I ran my regular

Dash board display. Gallons used on top MPG on bottom

route from Charlotte, NC to Laredo, TX. My load weighed 17.000 lbs. My road speed was 65 mile per hour and I even experienced traffic jams in Atlanta, GA and thunderstorms in Louisiana. My dashboard display showed 9.24 mpg, however, my actual mileage calculated on paper was 9.009. Prior to the thunderstorms, my dash display was indicating my average was at 9.52. I feel the Detroit Diesel DD15 offers even more potential in fuel savings with it’s BluTec SCR Technology.The 2009 Cascadia which I drove last year took 60,000 to 80,000 miles before it reached it’s fuel mileage potential. Therefore, I am really excited

Note the difference in the gallons from the dash board display.

about the results this early with the new 2011 Cascadia and DD15 engine.

Henry

This morning, I was reflecting on how far we’ve come from even the last twenty years in our industry. So many things have changed over that time.

Years ago, I was driving for a company whose truck was built in the late 80′s. This truck was a GMC Brigadier conventional with spring ride suspension. The seat had no support and the truck itself had no insulation. I drove this vehicle full time for five years. Finally, I developed a serious back problem due to the harshness of working driving this truck each day. One day, I remember pulling off into a convenience store and I just couldn’t take the pain any longer. My body was worn out and I found it extremely painful to get in or out of the truck. The company I worked for was not a trucking company, however, a supply house in which they delivered their product to various customers. Therefore, they really weren’t knowledgeable on truck specifications.

I convinced my boss to take a ride with me one day. I laughed to myself as he climbed in with a hot cup of coffee. I suggested he finish it prior to our drive. He wouldn’t hear of it and said “let’s go”. We went two blocks and he told me to pull over so he could dump out what was left in his cup. It was impossible to drink anything in that truck. Also, he had the idea he would catch up on email on his laptop. Again, to his surprise… impossible. The trip we took was approximately  100 miles to reach our destination. During the ride, he complained how terrible the truck rode. I told him, just wait until we go back empty. When we arrived at our customer to unload, my boss decided to call a sales person from the office to come and pick him up. There was no way he was going to ride in that truck again. He told me when I get back to park the truck for good. I was to call for a rental until we could get a new truck. He couldn’t believe that I put up with the
ride for so long. He even let me pick out the truck I wanted, along with the specs. I chose a new Freightliner FLD 120 with air ride cab and suspension. I also added nice seats with support.

I had several months of physical therapy for my back. Luckily, I’ve not had any problems since that time, approximately 14 years ago.

Today, we are blessed with the ultimate features of comfort. The new Cascadia rides extremely smooth. It’s quiet, well insulated and offers an ergonomic designed cab. I am pleased with how this truck rides, handles and in general provides overall comfort to one’s body. Freightliner really paid attention to the details. It’s nice to look back and see how far we’ve come. By the way, my back feels great!

Henry

I wanted to discuss the ways in which I have been able to improve my fuel mileage. The Cascadia with the Detroit Diesel DD15 engine already makes the Freightliner an efficient truck. While each one of these may not make a huge difference, each helps in it’s own way to attain efficiency. Some of the following are Freightliner options and some are my additions.

Lower grill block offs for better areodynamics

Lower skirts for under truck management

Revised cab extenders

Nose Cone for improved trailer air flow

Fleet Engineers Air Slipper trailer side skirts.

trimmed down mud flaps for wide base tires cut wind drag.

These are just a few ways in which I save fuel on my new Cascadia. Here’s a thought: if you find a tenth of a mile a gallon,in ten places, you will have a full mile per gallon improvement in your fuel mileage. Pay attention to the little things because collectively they become a great savings.

Henry

I just finished a busy few weeks transporting shipments and attending various truck shows.

I thought I’d update you on the performance of the new Cascadia. The odometer reading is 13,949 miles. So far, the DD15 has used approximately a quart of oil.

The fuel mileage since my last update has been 7.920, 7.864, 8.194 and 8.717. The first two included me driving through West Virgina to arrive at shows. My diesel exhaust fluid usage has continued to amaze me because I recorded 533.812 miles per gallon. This works out to .005 cents per mile at 2.999 a gallon. This usage is far better than the written information in the Detroit Diesel brochure which advertises approx. 300mpg.

I can’t wait for this truck to be fully broken in to see what kind of mpg results this Csscadia can attain. I’ve set my goal to achieve over 9 miles per gallon in the future. I’ll keep you posted on it’s performance. Take care.

Henry