Cool Efficiency

Day 3 was I80 going west, basically crossing Nebraska and Wyoming, that is. West Nebraska is corn farms and its east is cattle farms. Otherwise it is flat. Flat right, flat left, flat in front, flat behind, flat here, flat there, flat everywhere. You get the point. It kind of gets boring to go on a flat, straight road all the time. On the more exciting side, the speed limit is 75 mph. I decided to do some fuel economy evaluations.

When I picked up the truck in Jeffersonville, Indiana, the display showed me the average mpg up to that point was 6.71 mpg. Going through Illinois with quite a bit of 50 and 55 mph zones, the average fuel economy went up 6.89 mpg. On the straight, flat road in Nebraska, I did 65 mph. After about 3.5 hours, the average mpg leveled out and stayed constant at 6.62 mpg. The next 4 hours I did 75 mph. By that time I was crossing into Wyoming which has ups and downs and is therefor not entirely comparable in terms of fuel economy. At least the speed limit there too is 75 mph. It took about another 3.5 hours to level out at 6.19 mpg. So the fuel economy dropped from 6.62 to 6.19 when increasing the speed from 65 to 75 mpg. Speed matters a lot to the fuel bill.

As I was driving 65, I was being passed constantly by the other trucks. And then I noticed an interesting pattern. There were two groups of overtaking trucks. Those who inch by and those who fly by. After a while I could pretty much with 80% accuracy predict if a truck would inch or fly by. The aerodynamic trucks would inch by whereas the cool trucks – square grills, outside hood mounted air filters, big vertical exhaust pipes, lots of chrome – would fly by.

It is like with cars, when you are cool, you drive fast. But with cars, when you are cool, you are aerodynamic. With trucks it is just the opposite, when you are cool, you are all but aerodynamic.

Imagine if we could turn efficient trucks like my Cascadia into cool. Not only would they be good for the owner’s wallet, the nations energy independency and the public health, they also would be good for the drivers’s ego. We all need some ego and pride. Cool efficiency, that is the way to go. We just need to figure out how to get there.

Miguel