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Talking Freight: The Use of Emission Reduction Technologies in Freight Vehicles

May, 2019

View the May 2019 seminar recording

Presentations

Transcript

Jennifer Symoun

Good afternoon or good morning to those of you to the West. Welcome to the Talking Freight Seminar Series. My name is Jennifer Symoun and I will moderate today's seminar. Today's topic is The Use of Emission Reduction Technologies in Freight Vehicles.

Before I go any further, I do want to let those of you who are calling into the teleconference for the audio know that you need to mute your computer speakers or else you will be hearing your audio over the computer as well.

Today's seminar will last 90 minutes, with 60 minutes allocated for the speakers, and the final 30 minutes for audience Question and Answer.  If during the presentations you think of a question, you can type it into the chat area.  Please make sure you send your question to "Everyone" and indicate which presenter your question is for. Presenters will be unable to answer your questions during their presentations, but I will start off the question and answer session with the questions typed into the chat box.  We will also take questions over the phone if time allows and I will provide instructions on how to do so once we get to that point.

The PowerPoint presentations used during the seminar are available for download from the file download box in the lower right corner of your screen. The presentations will also be available online within the next few weeks, along with a recording and a transcript. I will notify all attendees once these materials are posted online.

Talking Freight seminars are eligible for 1.5 certification maintenance credits for AICP members. In order to obtain credit for today's seminar, you must have logged in with your first and last name or if you are attending with a group of people you must type your first and last name into the chat box. 

PDH certificates are also available for Talking Freight seminars. To receive 1.5 PDH credits, you will need to fill out a form. Please see the link in the chat box. Certificates will be emailed one week after the seminar. A seminar agenda has been included in the file download box for those who need to submit an agenda to their licensing agency.

Finally, I encourage everyone to please also download the evaluation form from the file share box and submit this form to me after you have filled it out.

Today we'll have four presentations, given by:

Our first presentation will be given by Dennis Johnson, the Technology Assessment Center Director in EPA's Transportation and Climate Division.  Dennis has been with EPA for over 30 years.  Dennis' engineering work a has included a wide range of topics related mobile source emissions and fuel economy in the areas of testing, test protocol development, compliance, enforcement, regulation development, engine certification, in-use testing, fuels & additives, portable emission measurement system development and voluntary programs for both on-highway and nonroad engines.  As Director of the Tech Center, Dennis and his staff conduct research, evaluate fuel savings and emission reduction performance of technologies used in EPA's National Clean Diesel Campaign and SmartWay Technology Program and to help trucking fleets identify technologies that may benefit their operations.

Dennis Johnson

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today on the Talking Freight Webinar. By way of background I would like to share a little story to start with, and there's a reason for this so please bear with me. When I first got a job as an engineer's aid working in a factory, we got a new piece of equipment that I was helping my boss introduced to the operations. And he came to me laughing shortly after we got this piece of equipment with a big package of papers, and he opened it up and looked at it, and on the title cover it said, "If all else fails, read this." And it turned out it was the operating instructions for the new piece of equipment. And I think it's important that as we think of diesel engines nowadays that we think about the operating instructions and what you can learn from the designers of these systems, because it is very important and it will certainly help you in the long run. And please do not wait until you have problems to read these instructions.

So, with that I will jump into the scope of what I'll talk about today. I'll give you a little background on why we have some of the standards. I will of course talk about the current admission standards and where the standards are going; talk about emission control technologies and how these are operating in modern diesel trucks; what we are doing with evaluating the performance of fuel saving technologies. And just so that you are privy to why I talk about fuel saving technologies, of course, saving fuel also reduces emissions. So, it is important for fleets to recognize that while they are adopting technologies that will save them money, it is also helping the environment with these technologies as well. With that I will jump into our presentation.

By way of background, EP of course as a priority of improving public health and improving air quality nationally. Reducing workers' exposure can come with reducing pollutants. We looked at improving National air quality; local air quality districts of course benefit by the adoption of emission control technologies, but most of these mobile sources are regulated on a National level. Emission standards for diesel engines; the criteria pollutants that we typically talk about regulating are hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, oxides and nitrogen, carbine dioxide, and particulate matter. Health benefits by these standards are illustrated here. And just a note for everyone, when we talk about diesel trucks we often don't think as much about the drivers of these trucks and reducing emissions from diesel trucks is certainly going to reduce driver exposure. But also, as we think about these emission standards by way of feedback, I hear fleets talking about their maintenance facilities, that they really like new emission control technologies on trucks because the facilities don't get as dirty inside. And the particulate matter that used to be released into the shop environment is significantly reduced. And just the worker exposure when doing maintenance on these trucks is a significant benefit for fleets. So, in addition to improving public health as an overall opportunity here, we are also talking about worker exposure in the diesel truck environment. As we talk about these standards I want you also to recognize that when we look at the future of trucking and what is happening globally, as emission standards are increasingly stringent for the light-duty sector, what you see is that there will be continued growth in the freight sectors. Heavy duty vehicles, aviation, marine, rail, all of these are going to continue to expand in their contributions to the inventory globally. This graph illustrates from Exxon Mobil's Energy Outlook projected growth globally that freight will continue to be an area of increasing sources of energy consumption and global emissions contributions. So, it's really important to recognize that as we move forward the benefits of all these standards obviously are going to be great, but at the same time there is going to be significant contributions in the future as we continue to expand our heavy-duty operations.

So, when you think about emission standards, this graph will illustrate NOx and PM standards. Typically when we talk about diesel engines, primary pollutants are NOx and PM. So, when I was a teenager helping my father with his trucks, uncontrolled engines were essentially off the chart here. Those engines back in the 70s and early 80s, very high contributions of PM and NOx. And the first emission standards when I came to EP were relatively lenient, but most of the standards were achieved by what we described as engine modifications. So, engine manufacturers started improving oil control, reducing the amount of gap between the top ring and the combustion chamber, improving fuel injector design, and gradually started introducing electronic control to their heavy-duty engines, changing timing to improve fuel economy as well as reduced NOx emissions. And gradually, as manufacturers continue to achieve the standards, increased electronic controls, more timing controls, better fuel control to prevent over fueling, all contribute to reducing NOx and PM emissions. And gradually the intraday introduced EGR, and as we have now for the current standards 2007 to 2010 timeframe, with the adoption of diesel particulate filters and FDR systems. I'll mention as well that in the mid-90s many diesel engines started being equipped with diesel oxidation catalysts and some sectors, such as in urban buses, diesel oxidation catalysts and diesel particulate filters were introduced earlier in certain applications.

So, looking to the future, late last year Administrator Wheeler announced the Clean Truck Initiative. Some may have heard about this. As EPA is looking at new regulatory initiatives, this is one that the Office of Mobile Sources will be pursuing here and the Office of Transportation and Air Quality will do a large initiative looking at heavy-duty trucks and working with the California Air Resources Board, as well as working closely with industry to explore new opportunities to reduce NOx emissions. This will be heavily focused on looking at in-use operation and technologies that can be adopted to improve overall vehicle performance as well as fuel consumption and reduced NOx emissions in the real world. It is also an opportunity as these systems have become increasingly complex and are very difficult to evaluate prior to production as the way many engines are certified by incorporating new ways of streamlining the process and evaluating real-world operation. The hope is that we will be able to modernize a lot of the methods for certifying and demonstrating compliance. Also, we will be looking at ways to improve compliance moving into the future. And this, of course, includes doing on-road testing and looking at in-use operation.

Looking at emission control technologies, this graph illustrates the modular aspect of diesel particulate filters on the left. What you see is that the center body of the DPF can be removed for cleaning. These systems are intended to have maintenance performed on them. DPFs do needs to be periodically cleaned and it's really important to keep that in mind as we think about modern DPF equipped engines. The illustration on the right helps you understand the complexity of a current exhaust emission control system. This picture from Cummins illustrates that when, essentially, the exhaust comes from the top right area, exhaust passes through a diesel oxidation catalyst reducing some organic matter in DM, changing some oxides and nitrogen to NO to help DPF performance thereafter where particulate matter is trapped in the DPF and you can have increases in NOx emissions, which then through the urea dosing system will be reduced and deflective catalytic reduction area before exhausted into the atmosphere

These systems are highly complex and integrated with the electronic controls of the engines. So, it's really important to recognize that for all the engine changes I was describing earlier – with electronic controls now, the way that engine manufacturers and vehicle truck manufacturers are improving fuel economy by reducing fuel consumption and also changing engine timing – they are able to reduce engine out particular matter, which helps DPF performance and reduces DPF maintenance, improving fuel economy and also reducing oxides and nitrogen through the SCR system. So, all the complex calibrations and urea dosing strategies that are incorporated into a modern truck help us achieve these improved fuel economies that we are hearing about, as well as the reduced emission levels I described a few minutes ago.

To further illustrate for you a diesel particulate filter if you are familiar with this type of technology. The way this DPF works is essential you have alternating cells within the DPF that are plugged. The exhaust flows in one side and has to pass through a wall within the filter where particulate matter is trapped. Carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxide, and oxides of nitrogen pass through this in gaseous form but help in the catalytic reaction of the walls of the DPF to help reduce the diesel PM into ash. This DPF as we've shown in some of our testing, a DPF can reduce PM admissions in the order of 97 to 99% efficiency. Even a cracked DPF. As some people worry about the durability of these designs, we've tested some that were cracked would be in the upper 50s and 60% PM reduction range. So even as a damaged device these things are still highly effective. Of course, if a DPF is damaged the engine should be sending trouble codes to help the operator note that maintenance is required.

DPF cleaning is very critical. And a lesson that has been learned over the last 15 years is that you should not wait too long to clean your DPF. On the left side of the screen, the top picture illustrates a cleaner DPF. You can see the cell somewhat in the illustration where exhaust is able to flow through the front face of this DPF. The lower part shows a highly plugged DPF. You can see the said accumulation on this. And the idea is that over time a DPF to be serviced needs to be taken off and periodically cleaned. If you wait too long to clean it, that soot accumulation, the ash accumulation, is going to impact your DPF's ability to regenerate, it makes it harder to remove the ash accumulated within the DPF, which then also impacts filter life and causes you to have more frequent maintenance intervals as the ash is not able to be cleaned from the DPF. You're going to have to take it off more frequently to clean the ash out, and overall you set yourself up for extra expenses, so you shouldn't wait to clean your DPF. It is much better to refer to the operating instructions on how frequently you should be doing it. Also, if the operator is hitting the regen button all the time, we're looking at fleet operation to understand if you're able to swap trucks between different duty cycles to increase exhaust temperatures that can also help with DPF performance. And as I described, these modern engines and exhaust systems are optimized for DPF and SCR performance, so it's important to recognize that as you are doing maintenance, looking at maintenance requirements from the manufacturer, that you want to be taking care of both of these systems.

I want to talk about testing as well. As I talk to trucking fleets they are often curious to learn about the different types of testing that EPA and the industry does. To highlight for everyone, engines are typically certified on an engine dynamometer as shown here on the lower left, where exhaust systems can be mounted in the test cell and everything can be monitored very closely. Engine certification is done in very tightly controlled environments and a variety of test cycles. So, we are looking at overall engine performance, the power that the engine generates under a variety of conditions, as well as exhaust emissions that are generated over these test cycles. I'll also note for you, we do a lot of truck testing as well. We look at real-world operation measuring emissions. The top illustration was testing we conducted several years back looking at the fuel economy benefits from aerodynamic technologies which you can see mounted on the more prominent truck in this picture. And we also do scale-model wind tunnel testing. We look at the aerodynamic performance of technologies. And the truck manufacturers are doing this as well. So, for fleets that are looking at different technologies and what to incorporate on the truck, realize these are highly integrated systems from the manufacturers now and the fuel economy benefits, if you have a truck that you modify, you may be very well impacting the fuel economy benefits that have most likely been optimized by the truck manufacturers.

So, this graph illustrates fuel savings that we demonstrated in some research a number of years ago. What we have here is the % fuel reduction on the y-axis on the left-hand side, and the coefficient of rolling resistance on the x-axis on the bottom. And what this shows for you is, on the lower right part of the graph, we tested a truck; this is trucks testing on a track looking at constant speed highway cruise operations. We tested with high rolling resistance tires and then we changed the tires just on the trailer the low rolling resistance tires. And then we swapped back those tires to high rolling resistance and put low rolling resistance on the tractors. And then on the far upper left area you see the low rolling resistance tires over all. The reason we did this was, one, to show the great fuel savings benefit you can get, which we demonstrated between 7 and 10% fuel savings with low rolling resistance tires. I'll repeat that again. Truck fleets, if they use high rolling resistance tires, if they swap them out entirely for low rolling resistance tires, can achieve on the order of 7 to 10% fuel savings, and that is significant. The way we did this was to illustrate for fleets, if you own your tractor, this helps you see that for your tractor you can get on the order of 4% fuel savings just with your tractor. If you own just the trailer, you can get 3 maybe 4% fuel savings just with the trailer. But for fleets that own both the tractor and the trailer, it is significant fuel savings as shown here.

This next graph shows the fuel savings benefits from aerodynamic technologies installed on the trailer. We did this testing a few years back looking at on-road operation at different speeds. The reason we did this was because we were looking at how good a benefit you can get for a trailer that incorporates a variety of technologies; that skirt underneath the trailer, the tail on the back of the trailer, potentially a gap reducer. And we demonstrated that at highway speed operation you can get about a 9% fuel savings with this. We term that the Smart Way Elite Trailer. But what we hear from fleets is that they do not always operate at highway speeds, so they are not as anxious to install these technologies. So, we conducted this test program to show that at varying lower speeds you still achieve these fuel savings benefits. So, what you see here is the top 9% fuel savings at 62 Miles per hour, but if you reduced to about 55 Miles per hour, typical highway speed in many places, you are still getting on the order of 7% fuel savings. And then, if you are running at lower speeds more consistently, you can still get that above 4% fuel savings for most truck applications with these aerodynamic technologies. So, this testing we are doing is to help fleets understand the benefits and make their own informed decisions on the fuel savings that they can achieve with their trucks and their operation.

As I talk about fleet operations, I want to highlight for everyone, with modern trucks in the upper left-hand area, it's very important to get your aerodynamic fairings repaired. Those do impact fuel savings. We illustrated their significant fuel savings with tank fairings, even on day cab tractors when you are running on pups. These fairings are really important to overall fuel economy performance of the tractor-trailer. Improving your maintenance and repair operations is going to be a return on investment.  That picture on the right, when fleets install different types of technologies, in this case mud flaps, installing them closer to the tires is going to be in aerodynamic benefit. In this case, this fleet often runs low rolling resistance single wide tires, but they install the mud flaps at the rear back of the trailer around the underride guard, and that is going to be detrimental to fuel savings when you can run the mud flaps, or even aerodynamic mud flaps, up closer to the tires. And lower left, we want driver engagement. Fleets are having drivers not doing what they could do. This is money out of the pocket for the fleet to run on a truck like this on the highway with that tail closed. Drivers understanding the emission control systems, being involved in what is happening with their trucks. That driver engagement is going to help fleets, both in terms of identifying potential maintenance needs, concerns with engine operation, and helping to reduce truck downtime. In that picture on the right is a clean DPF where you can better see the cells after DPF has been cleaned; what you have with a better performing DPF. So, as I started this discussion, I wanted to highlight, following the manufacturer's instructions for DPF cleaning, SCR maintenance and other types of vehicle requirements, oil change intervals, all of these things are going to help both reduce emissions as well as save fuel for the trucking fleet.

With that, I'll close with a couple of comments. Our program supports the National Clean Diesel Campaign in terms of verifying technologies. If you're interested in looking at technologies that can be applied to those older trucks, we have a list of verified emission control technologies on our verified list. We also support the Smart Way Program and the Smart Way Partnership in terms of helping fleets quantify their fleet operations and reduce emissions. And, for your reference, the research that we did is described in these papers listed here, so if you want to look at some of the testing we have done there is a variety of published papers for your convenience. And with that I'll wait for questions at the end.

Jennifer Symoun

Thank you, Dennis. Our next presentation will be given by Jim Nebergall, the Director of North American On-Highway Product Strategy at Cummins, Inc. Jim has spent 17 years in the commercial vehicle industry focusing on a variety of disciplines including On-Board Diagnostics, Product Planning, and New Product Introduction.  Most recently Jim lead the introduction of Cummins flagship X15, which received the Truck Writers of North America 2016 Technical Achievement Award, and has been the top-selling heavy-duty engine in North America since its introduction.

Jim Nebergall

Thank you, everyone. I appreciate the time with you and discussing this important topic. So first, at Cummins we are very excited because this year is our 100th anniversary. The company Cummins was incorporated in 1919, so 100 years ago today. And Cummins' first product was produced in April 1919; it was a diesel engine capable of a strong 6 horsepower. So, we have come a long way since then. And then we skip ahead to today, and after 100 years of experience with diesel technology and our flagship X15 diesel engine is the top-selling heavy-duty engine in North America and surprising the top rating of 600 horsepower. A long way from 6 to 600. So, technology innovation has allowed Cummins to take diesel technology and make it the most dominant power solution in commercial applications in the hundred years. Cummins powers 7 out of every 10 trucks on the road today. We also power everything from trains, ships, buses, we power pickup delivery trucks, construction farm equipment, oil and gas rigs around the world, as well as many other applications.

But the world is always changing, and we have to be ready for what is coming in the future. So, it is important to keep a pulse on what are the disruptive trends in our industry. And emission regulations have been driving us closer to zero emissions. It's been a journey. We've been on a journey, as you saw earlier on slide 5 from Dennis, and that journey continues. There's a global need for reduced CO2 greenhouse gases, and then also there are globalized needs for reductions in NOx. California is actively looking at additional regulations around NOx, specifically, and improved NOx in-use compliance with the EPA. California is looking at adoptions as early as 2024 as potentially a first step in those reductions. So, diesel will remain an important and viable technology for meeting emission regulations. And our customers will continue to rely on unique energy density that diesel fuel provides and the available infrastructure to support diesel powered vehicles. Our journey has been to improve the emissions of diesels, which we've done dramatically, while also improving fuel economy. But we realize there isn't a clean fuel, there's only clean technology. And we aim to reduce the negative impacts of carbon-based fuels, to substitute where we can where it makes sense. And that's where Energy diversity within our portfolio makes sense. We want to deliver the right technologies at the right time to the market.

So, what I will do is explore five technologies that really apply to the commercial vehicle space. And we will talk about the pros and cons of those as I go through these technologies.

The first we start off with is ultra-clean diesel. So, the diesel engine, we're not standing still, we will continue to innovate diesel engine systems to make it lighter, more powerful and fuel-efficient, and believe it will continue to serve the heavy-duty commercial markets for decades to come. Product complexity will increase as we have to add technology to further improve CO2 and to further improve NOx. But we do embrace regulations, and we have been for more than 20 years, and we will develop solutions that meet the diesel engine and NOx emissions in the future. Some of these technologies that we are exploring include additional aftertreatment. So, higher conversion capabilities of the NOx and also conversion of NOx at lower temperatures, because of the desire for improved in-use performance around low load duty cycles and lower loaded vehicles that can still convert NOx. So, that would drive additional hardware to the system, increase conversion efficiency of NOx, perhaps additional SCR systems closer to the engine, as well as more advanced thermal management capabilities of the engine, improved combustion. And then we are also looking at future technologies around CO2 greenhouse gas that includes reduced frictions and reduced parasitics for more optimized combustion.

I did see a question on the chat come through earlier around DPFs, and I think somebody asked how long they do last. So, DPFs are designed to last for the life of the vehicle. The cleaning has to occur at some interval and the cleaning intervals continue to increase. And it's really a function of oil consumption on the engine, as well as combustion efficiency. And so, for vehicles that have very high fuel economy – so the fleets that are getting the high miles per gallon can see cleaning intervals up into the 500,000 miles and 600,000 miles at the high end. But then if you have highly transient, lower fuel economy duty cycles then those numbers. So, it's a very duty cycle dependent cleaning interval.

The next technology I want to discuss is natural gas. And natural gas technology has been around for quite a while. Cummins has three engines that are certified to what California is considering a near zero emissions standard of .02 grams NOx. So that's a 90%, actually lower, NOx certification than the country has. The country has a .2 gram NOx, and this is a .02 gram. So, natural gas is a very ideal solution. It has lower fuel cost, it is biofuel capable, and it produces near zero emissions as I said with traditional natural gas. But also, if you are using renewable natural gas, it has a negative carbon footprint. You will hear more about that in one of the subsequent presentations. Natural gas as a technology is ideally suited for low NOx, which is a smog-forming chemical. And it's also ideally suited for low CO2, which is greenhouse gas. So, the fuel itself has a lower carbon content to begin with, so it is a very clean-burning fuel. It also has a maintenance free and very simple after treatment system. It's a three-way catalyst with two oxygen sensors. It doesn't have the complexity of a diesel treatment system that you saw few slides back. It has a very quiet engine operation compared to a diesel engine and it does deliver on energy independence initiatives. The US is actually a net exporter of natural gas, so we have more natural gas than we are able to consume, and we export significant amounts of it. Natural gas also has very stable fuel pricing. So, there are a lot of positives for natural gas. There are a couple areas that still need to be overcome to make it a mass, wide adoption technology. So, the first one I list is natural gas infrastructure. And my personal opinion is that sometimes it's a misnomer, because I think we have evidence to show that really the infrastructure follows the sales. As natural gas sales increase, the natural gas fuel providers are willing to open and add infrastructure from fueling stations etc. So, it is kind of a fast follower infrastructure situation here. And, in my opinion, it's more the competitive vehicle pricing. So, the pricing of the vehicles does remain at a premium, and it's a lot about the tanks and the on-vehicle fuel delivery systems. Those tanks are quite expensive, and they also add weight to the vehicle. So, that's more of a challenge, because that limits the adoption to customers that are driving high-mileage where they can get a payback within their window. However, we have found that the customers that do embrace the technology and adapt their business model around the natural gas infrastructure etc., they have been very satisfied. But it takes a little more effort from an end-user perspective. But we also have a lot of applications like city buses and urban delivery and refuse that are very satisfied with it and it makes a lot of sense for those customers.

The next technology I wanted to explore is hybrid. So, hybrid is a technology that can actually be added to any internal combustion engine. When it comes to more of the heavy-duty market, really this is a diesel hybrid that is well-suited for this market because of the ultra-sensitivity to fuel efficiency. So, hybrid does add improved fuel efficiency. When you do have the electric motors, you do have the ability to have improved drivability and improve torque and torque response, but you have to remember it's a commercial vehicle and it is all about operational efficiency. So, the instantaneous torque is not here to turn a Class 8 truck into a hot rod. It is really just to supplement the driving cycle and add an improvement as opposed to adding significant performance, because that would just be wasting your energy. Another benefit to hybrids is that there is no range anxiety, because there's an existing fuel infrastructure. You have an internal combustion engine, that's the fuel source. And then the hybrid is there as a benefit. You're not reliant on the hybrid system to move you down the road, so you don't have to worry about a charging infrastructure, unless it is a plug-in hybrid where that just gives you additional benefits to top off and leverage the electrical grid. But then that's one of the challenges. If it's a plug-in hybrid then there still is an electrical infrastructure challenge. The hybrid powertrain would provide you with the ability to have limited zero tailpipe emissions mode. So, it's possible to design the system in such a way that you could have enough battery to have zero emission ranges of 10 Miles or 20 Miles, so you could go into inner-city areas, make deliveries, and come back out if there's local demand for lower emissions. Hybrid is also ideally suited for low NOx and a low CO2 future. And one thing I want to point out here is, as consumers we are used to hybrid passenger cars – and hybrid passenger cars are about fuel efficiency, so that's about CO2 and it's about improve driving performance –passenger cars hybrids are not able to control NOx. So, in the commercial vehicle space with diesel engines, the hybrid system can be an additional level for NOx control. It's more complicated. We have EGR systems and turbos and high-pressure common rail fuel systems, these are the levers we have today, in addition to SCR, for controlling NOx. And the hybrid just gives you another dimension on controlling that NOx and reducing NOx emissions by either managing exhaust temperature better so you can increase your conversion rates for NOx and the SCR system, it can improve management of the diesel engine so you have higher exhaust temperatures out of the engine, and it just allows you to operate the diesel engine and a more favorable NOx fashion, not just CO2 like a pass car. So, similar but different. It is not nearly as easy an add-on as it would be a pass car, and hopefully I didn't insult any pass car engineers on this call. So, some of the other challenges are that it would be, you know, competitive vehicle pricing would be a challenge for a while because of the battery cost for the hybrid. The commercial vehicle industry is a follower, typically, of pass car technology. Pass car can develop scale that drives down cost, and then that can be applied to commercial vehicle industry which has much fewer sales per year. So, the technology and scale development will help fuel the commercial industry, but commercial industry won't be able to fuel that on its own. And then battery weight is also important, because we're talking quite sizable amount of batteries in some cases. Not as much in the hybrid as you'll see on the next slide for full electric.

So, there's a lot of talk in the news about full electric vehicles. And when you think about full electric, at least in a heavy-duty, there are some benefits but also significant challenges. So, full electric vehicle does have a higher operational efficiency than a conventional internal combustion engine. It is obviously quieter, with a simpler powertrain and with fewer mechanical parts as compared to a diesel or natural gas engine. It will also have zero tailpipe emissions. So, it will have zero tailpipe emissions, but the electricity has to come from somewhere, be it renewable resources (hydro, solar, wind) or if it's coming from a natural gas or a coal, you have to think about the full well to wheel equation here with respect to CO2 improvements. But from a tailpipe in a vehicle, it is technically a zero emissions vehicle. Some of the challenges similar to hybrid; in this case you are 100% reliant on electrical charging infrastructure. So, fast-charge times and access to charging is critical. And the industry is built around fill times today, as diesel natural gas. So, fast charge would be very important unless fleets are able to manage an infrastructure or alter their business model such that they can manage charge times. Competitive weight and battery pricing will be also important because of the trade off with cargo carrying capacity. So, the traditional Class 8 long-haul market is not prime for electric vehicles. Your trailer would be full of batteries and you would have no room left for goods. In the regional style market where trucks have a limited range, 200 miles a day and they come back to base, then it is more feasible from a technology, but now you've got a vehicle price you have to overcome. And I think we will see companies experimenting with electric vehicles to get an understanding how they can adopt their business model, but not for a widespread adoption in the near future. There are some significant hurdles that need to be overcome before it becomes a mainstream technology.

And then the last fuel type is a fuel cell. This is even farther out on the time horizon. It does provide a lot of the same benefits as electric vehicles. So, a fuel-cell vehicle, its fuel is hydrogen. And it takes the hydrogen in and converts that with air, basically in the exhaust water as the only byproduct. So, it is a zero tailpipe emissions solution. It does have excellent range and refueling time, because you are still bringing onboard a fuel, it just happens to be a hydrogen fuel. It has batteries and motors like a hybrid vehicle does, you've just swapped out your internal combustion engine for a fuel-cell. It does struggle from infrastructure challenges. This would require a hydrogen infrastructure. We can see how we struggle somewhat to adopt a natural gas infrastructure and there is this dependency on the competitiveness of vehicle pricing and then the infrastructure. This just multiplies it again, because we need competitive vehicles to drive an infrastructure for hydrogen. And then the earlier discussion on where does your hydrogen come from. Does it come from renewable resources or does it come from refining natural gas? So, there's a process and a lot of electricity required to make hydrogen. So, in the full equation, that also needs to be thought through. So, competitive hydrogen pricing as well as fuel-cell pricing will be critical. There are markets where we will see, I think, hydrogen fuel cell adoption. And that is in the urban bus market where there are other incentives and other factors at play, where vehicles are operating in very dense populations. The municipalities and the bus fleet are able to create infrastructure, because they can control routes and things. It is a technology that is very attractive, but at each segment of industry will have a different adoption curve and leverage either electric or fuel-cell in the long-term future, 2050 and beyond kind of timeframe.

So, as we face climate change and other environmental challenges like smog and poor air quality, our  broad portfolio of power solutions provides our customers with the best power solution to move freight all over the world, all while powering a more sustainable future. I look forward to questions at the end and thank you for your attention.

Jennifer Symoun

All right well thank you Jim. Our next presentation will be given by Ezra Finkin. Ezra has served with the Diesel Technology Forum since July 2012.  As the policy and outreach director, Mr. Finkin works to educate policy makers with state, local and federal governments and NGOs about the environmental and economic benefits of diesel technology.  Previously, Mr. Finkin served as a policy and industry affairs representative for several trade associations representing retailers, manufacturers and the ocean transportation and goods movement industries. 

Ezra Finkin

Great, thank you very much. I very much appreciate the invitation to come and talk to you folks today. We were hoping to set the stage here and talk a little bit about the latest diesel technologies and freight transportation, particularly a deeper dive into trucking. So, what I would like to do is talk a bit about diesel technology you see on the road today and little bit more about what we anticipate in the future. You just heard from Jim Nebergall with Cummins, and I think that was a good run down of all the various technology choices including diesel that will be available in the medium and perhaps even long-term. But we will do somewhat of a deeper dive into the diesel here. By way of background, the Diesel Technology Forum represents leaders in Clean Diesel Technology. We serve as a research and advocacy organization for diesel engine vehicle equipment manufacturers, affiliated componentry and fuels, including bio full producers.

So, when we look at commercial vehicles, again that's what we'll focus a little more on today, diesel is the predominant technology choice today. So, if it is the class 3-8 vehicles – that's everything from a large pickup truck all the way up to the big class 8 big rigs – 78% of those vehicles are powered by diesel today, with the remaining primarily gasoline. And the large class 8 trucks, those are predominantly 99% of those are diesel and the other 1% primarily natural gas. Why do we have diesel in the commercial trucking fleet? I think it all boils down to energy density of the fuel. Among the various fuel and technology types, none of these fuels match the energy density of fuel, which means that more goods can be transported on a gallon of diesel fuel than other fuels or technology types. But there are other attributes of diesel that make it a prime candidate as well; durability, low cost of ownership, reliability of the powertrain diesel is known as a very reliable and durable powertrain, and other attributes that explain its overwhelming predominance. But, as you heard from Dennis Johnson from EPA, there has been a decades long progress to near zero emissions in terms of EPA standards for both PM. You know PM as soot emissions and NOx. NOx is a smog forming compound. And going back to the late 80s, EPA has issued tailpipe standards that take these emissions down to near zero emissions today. I know you have seen a version of this chart on the left presented by Dennis, but we thought it might be of value to talk a little bit about the benefits of the latest Clean Diesel Technologies that meet the most recent rigid tailpipe standards set in model year 2010.

So, on the road today 36% or just a little more than one in three diesel commercial vehicles on the road come with the technology to meet that most recent tailpipe standard. And then it saved lots and lots of the emissions generating significant benefits. So, if it is NOx emissions or PM, it's equivalent to taking all cars on the road off the road for a number of years. So, these are significant emission reduction benefits that accrue quite literally immediately by replacing old technology with technology available on dealer lots today. And, of course, a higher turnover rate of older vehicles to new would generate further benefits. And it's not just commercial vehicles. I know that the chart you see here on the left is pretty confusing, but we did that for a reason. Much like the commercial vehicle standards going down to near zero emissions, similar standards for the wide variety of off-road equipment that's used to move freight – if that is locomotives, marine vessels, cargo handling equipment – all of those technologies are on a path to near zero emissions very similar to commercial vehicles. And technologies that have been developed to meet those near zero emissions standards today are generating significant benefits for the communities where they serve, typically near large freight facilities.

And it's not just criteria pollutants, but also fuel economy and greenhouse gas reductions. We are already in the first phase of the first-ever fuel economy rules for commercial vehicles. Both EPA and NHTSA estimate that there are significant benefits in terms of fuel savings and greenhouse gas reductions that are attributable to those more fuel-efficient trucks that are on dealer lots today. And upcoming, the second phase of those rules will kick in beginning in 2021. The more stringent standards here, as you can see, will generate even more significant emission reduction in fuel savings benefits. So, while a lot of the technologies that are developed to achieve these fuel economy standards, and you saw from Dennis's presentation somewhat of a deep dive into low rolling resistance tires, not all of these technologies are powertrain applicable. But they are designed to make the fuel sipping diesel engines sip even less fuel.

So, looking into the short-term future here, we've had a little discussion on the Cleaner Trucks Initiative. This is an initiative that was announced back in November 2018 by administrator Wheeler. Truck and engine manufacturers and other stakeholders are working with regulators to take the near zero emissions standards closer to zero. So, again, you see on the left for both NOx and PM we are currently at a very near zero level, and through this initiative we will take those standards closer to zero. And here at the Diesel Technology Forum we have commissioned some research and collected other research that all confirms that we will have diesel with us in the future. So, the information that you see here comes from the Fuels Institute. They commissioned some research trying to examine the penetration rate of emerging technologies in the medium-term. And you can see on the right that we do anticipate a variety of emerging technologies in the commercial vehicle space, and that will eat to diesel's overwhelming market share. But output to 2025 we anticipate that we will have diesel and diesel will continue to be the predominant powertrain in the commercial vehicle segment.

So, much like everybody else that has presented today, we do read the headlines and we see the constant mention of electrification in the commercial vehicle fleet. This information you see here comes from McKinsey who's done an analysis of the anticipated introduction of electrification and the variety of commercial vehicle types and in certain regions. We are already seeing in smaller commercial vehicle segments in Europe electrification options introduced today, but when it comes to the large class 8 trucks (those are the images you see here in orange), we do anticipate that those options may hit dealer lots in the 2030 and beyond timeframe. And, of course, it will be even more time before those technologies are adopted into the population, into the fleet, in any large number to generate quantifiable benefits. But we do anticipate that there will be electrification and that it will be a further competition for diesel.

We wanted to end here with somewhat of an introduction to biofuels. Today the diesel platform is biofuel-ready. This means that significant greenhouse gas reductions can be attributable by operating the diesel powertrain on a variety of advanced biofuels that contribute to at least a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Whether that is biodiesel or renewable diesel fuel, the diesel platform is ready today to operate on these fuels. On the bottom left you can see the slow increase in production and availability of these advanced biofuels (biodiesel in blue and renewable diesel fuel in green). And the use of these fuels today is contributing to significant greenhouse gas reductions that all play into the sustainability of the diesel platform. So, the chart on the left comes from California. As many of you may be aware, the state of California has a variety of policies to incentivize the introduction of low or no carbon transportation fuels. And you can see that cumulatively through 2017, the use of renewable diesel fuel and biodiesel field (that is in green) has contributed to significant carbon reductions in the state that helps California meet its very aggressive CO2 reduction strategies for transportation. The benefits provided by renewable diesel fuel and biodiesel fuel here far exceed that from electrified transportation, primarily from a plug-in electric and battery electric passenger vehicles. But it's not just California. The chart on the bottom right here, this comes from New York City. The city of New York has a very ambitious program to reduce the carbon footprint of its fleet of passenger cars, all the way up to large pieces of heavy duty equipment. As part of New York City's fleet (you can see the big wider green bar in the middle), the biggest reduction in New York City's plan to reduce carbon footprint comes from the use of biofuels – biodiesel, renewable diesel, renewable natural gas – all used in the fleet of heavy duty buses, equipment, and trucks. We want to end with the fact that here at the Diesel Technology Forum we believe diesel will be a technology of the future. Whether it's the expanded use of renewables, if it is further refinements to powertrain, hybridization, all that make sense. And we believe diesel will be positioned as a technology of the future and will continue to take emissions closer to zero while leading the growing demands of our economy. That is all we had and I'd be happy to take questions at the conclusion of the Webinar.

Jennifer Symoun

Thank you, Ezra. Our final presentation will be given by Steve Larsen, Director of Procurement and Fuel for Ruan Transportation Management Systems, a transportation company based in Des Moines, Iowa about 4,000 class-8 tractors.  Steve is responsible for 45-50M gallons of fuel purchases per year, including supplier relationships, price negotiation, as well as optimization.  Steve also leads other strategic Procurement and Sustainability initiatives.

Steve Larsen

Great, thank you. Thanks everybody for taking time to listen and get questions back to us for these presentations. A real quick overview of what I have to present today. A little bit about Ruan and a little bit about our sustainability initiatives. And then spend time on biodiesel and renewable diesel, what various factors to be considered and fleet implementation actuality. A little bit about Ruan; founded in 1932, dedicated contract transportation provider, as well as supply chain and warehouse management. Ruan is a full-service solution transportation company. As mentioned, about 4000 tractors, 9000 trailers. One thing that sets us apart a little bit is that our sustainability focus compared to peers, we really make an effort to learn about new technologies, adopt new technologies, and also participate in educational opportunities and things like that. And you can see a list here of a few of the awards we have received in the past for green fleets and green operator and things of that nature.

A little bit about our sustainability initiatives overall. Again, the industry group memberships, Advanced Clean Transportation (ACT) Expo; we presented there multiple times under various topics. And, again, best practice sharing industry calls, Webinars such as this one, and various presentations and panel discussions. We even had discussions with our customers that wanted to learn something about our new technology and have a private fleet or something like that, and so we're always wanting to share information and talk about strategies and things of that nature. In terms of fuel economy initiatives and some of these topics are little bit building on earlier comments. But we have modernized the fleet; we've seen a substantial improvement in fuel economy as we have done so. Average age of fleets under three years. We have seen improvements in the diesel fleet over eight Miles per gallon in many applications, so it's been amazing. I've been with Ruan since '95, and I remember the days when you would be looking at 5 ½ or so miles per gallon, so to see numbers in the 8's are amazing and great to see.

And then, for aerodynamic packages, typically we follow that guideline as presented earlier about the speed that you're looking to operate. So maybe in a case where you have a Metro fleet that's never reaching any sort of speed, just delivering and that type of thing, lots of city traffic or whatever, maybe wouldn't do as much. But for other applications we do pretty aggressive aerodynamic packages on tractors and trailers. We do use low-rolling resistance tires on all vehicles. That is standard spec for Ruan for all new equipment purchased. And any tires to be replaced are replaced with low-rolling resistance tires as well. And then other things that we do using the technologies that we have, such as the ELD reporting, that's helpful to get data to the drivers about fuel economy performance. Also, we do a lot of work with identifying vehicles that need maintenance inspections, because they may be worse than their peers in terms of fuel economy in same operation, same year/make/model of equipment there are tools like that that can help you pinpoint ways to attack fuel economy. And really, in terms of alternative fuels, Ruan's been a big adopter. We've run compressed natural gas and renewable natural gas vehicles, powered vehicles on the renewable natural gas digested from cattle manure. So, it's really an interesting story. We've run over 90 million miles on natural gas power. It's definitely been interesting and there have been a lot of sustainability benefits of that as well, started in 2011. We have some electric trucks on order and we're involved in multiple ongoing discussions about spacing and strategies and things like that with various manufacturers. But, today I'd like to focus on our biodiesel and renewable diesel programs.

So, for biodiesel we purchased over 130 million gallons from 2013 to 2018. And that is a blended biodiesel, that is not just pure, neat biodiesel, but that's total gallons of biodiesel blend. And that would range up to B20, biodiesel 20% blend. And really what we've seen over the years with truck stop chains, they've been typically following incentives. So, wherever incentives get passed, and let's say there is an 11% biodiesel blend incentive, they will sell you B11. And they'll follow the economics, I suppose primarily, but they also don't want to have their stations causing problems for vehicles. So, that also tells you about their competence in biodiesel as a fuel, that they're willing to put that out there. And really now you're going to be able to get pretty close to B20 in most states other than the few that have regulations that specify the amount they can put. Bulk tanks, we have wholesale fuel on-site at some facilities 15 tanks, and we really will go maximum B20 all the time, other than the winter in some of the Northern states. We have Iowa, for example, if it gets 20 or 30 degrees below zero real temperature, you do need to moderate and lower the biodiesel percentages there. And renewable diesel, we've worked with a partner REG on biodiesel and renewable diesel, but we've purchased 1.4 million gallons of fully renewable diesel for use in California in the last 12 months. And how we do that is we have an 80% renewable diesel and 20% biodiesel blend, and the biodiesel portion helps with lubricity that renewable diesel needs as an additive to help get maximum performance.

And just overall for factors that Ruan considered to expand our usage of biodiesel over the years, many years ago there were inconsistencies in quality of biodiesel and you occasionally hear stories out there about someone had a bad batch of something, but the standards that have been adopted have essentially completely eliminated that. We have not seen any fuel quality related issues, truck stop or bulk biodiesel. One thing that is important for fleets to understand is you need to make sure you have manufacturer support for your warranty coverage and that type of thing, that you can use up to B20. And we always get that. One thing I'll comment on is we would encourage all manufacturers to not only allow individual companies support, but to formally state full support and a blanket statement up to B20, and potentially even higher in future. But that's something we think everyone should be doing today.

Emissions, certainly you'll see an improvement right off the bat there by using biodiesel; you have 20% CO2 reduction. And one of the big things I think, you definitely see a lot of talk about battery electric vehicles and things like that out there, but one of the big things for us is biodiesel is completely ready to deploy now with no effort whatsoever from fleets. So, as previous presentations have talked about, other technologies are years away, if not decades in some cases. But, really, with biodiesel you can turn it on tomorrow and you'd have no real issues and start reducing your missions immediately. Works with existing class 8 heavy tractors today. No changes to equipment, no additional hardware needed, no components to be added anything like that, no capital cost increases. So, it really sells itself as a tool to reduce emissions today. No new infrastructure. We've seen that with natural gas you do have to manage that a little more just having it not being as mature as diesel. So, what is for diesel, you don't have to worry about that. Whether you have your own supply or truck stops over the road, the infrastructure is very mature so you won't have problems with that.

And a big piece for us has been the reduction in cost. So, really, you're subject to your negotiations with your field suppliers etc., but we've seen some benefits there. Blenders' credits and other incentives obviously help that, and we are supportive of continuation of those programs. Maintenance - we will get questions from time to time about, asking about problems with maintenance or fuel economy or anything like that. And we have not seen as we've ramped up to B20 nearly everywhere, we are not seeing any fuel related maintenance issues spiking whatsoever; really, we don't even hear about anything. That has been a big positive. Fuel economy: fuel economy is a little harder to calculate and to try to specify exactly, but just anecdotally we are not seeing negative impacts on fuel economy. And it is interesting because as we continue modernizing our fleet with better and better equipment all the time, our total fuel economy is improving so much that it is hard to quantify every little subcomponent of it. But, at least anecdotally, we are not seen any issue on the fuel economy.

And a little bit on benefits biodiesel that we've seen so far. This information, first bullet point, comes from our supplier REG in terms of CO2 reduction. So, we have seen in about 18 months 4,400 metric tons of reduction, and that is on about 20% or so of Ruan's bulk fuel purchases. Just sort of extrapolating that out a little bit and adjusting a little bit for other sources like truck stop fuel, we are looking at around 120,000 metric tons per year of reduction in CO2. That's pretty amazing, especially when you consider this is on a product that costs less and takes no effort to start up. So, really, that's a big component that our customers like to know about. We're a good corporate citizen, our customers care about the environment and care about emissions, so they always ask their suppliers to share what we are doing and things like that. So, this really helps in that front. Also, it is good for differentiating ourselves. You've seen some awards early on that Ruan has received and we definitely talk about that to shippers who are interested in sustainable transportation. I already mentioned reduced cost. State incentives are important here, as are blenders' credits and any potential new initiatives that might be underway. And then specific callout to cost of the 80/20 renewable bio blend combinations that has been specific to just California and is tied to the low carbon fuel center, the LCFS program, that really improves the competitiveness of renewable diesel. So, as other states consider – and we've been monitoring that and are seeing other states considering LCFS type programs – that should be a boon to renewable diesel.

And just a few other considerations. You do want to maintain good bulk diesel tank maintenance, as any fleet should. Especially if you're switching from straight #2 diesel to biodiesel. Regarding blending methods, Ruan has chosen to take delivered in pre-blended fuel and our bulk tanks. There are options for companies to maintain separate tanks for the neat bio and the #2 diesel and then add blending hardware and software to help tweak plans as you like. So, that would give you more control perhaps over your blends, but that also comes with some capital cost. I already mentioned cold-weather and some of the impacts there. So, you just want to perform good practices any way of testing your diesel on a routine basis and then be prepared for adjustments when the winter gets a little harsh. We do treat, of course, with normal winter treatment. That can also help you a little bit in terms of extending your biodiesel volumes into the colder seasons. One thing to factor as well is your turn of your diesel consumption. So, if you have a high-volume location where you're taking 7500 gallons of diesel per day, for example, you can pretty much watch the weather daily essentially and know what to take on the next load. But if you have a low-volume tank somewhere that's only taking a load every three weeks or something like that, then you have to factor well what could the weather be in the next three weeks not just what it is today. But that's another little factor that might not be immediately apparent. Biodiesel is domestically produced and helps with energy security as well, so that's always a positive. A lot of shippers like that, just as we do as carriers as well. One comment I also added here is the input cost from typical energy markets, because you're taking feedstocks that are not tied to the energy market, not petroleum-based. So, you're going to see that if you have an outbreak of tensions in major production areas of the world, that is not going to impact the feedstocks typically very much.

A little on a final slide here on policy changes that we'd like to see. We talked a little bit about natural gas in Ruan's past, right? Well, it can be complicated to take advantage of incentives sometimes. So, policymakers will set out an incentive that sounds good on its face and achieves emissions improvements and things of that nature. A good example is, Ruan has no equipment that's older than 2010 anywhere in the fleet, and we barely have anything older than 2015, but many of the incentive programs that are out there ask for 2009 or older equipment to be scrapped. So that's just an example of, even though we might have intention to take in the advantage of these incentives, we can't because of the way they are written. So, biodiesel incentives are basically highly effective. I've already mentioned truck stop chains will adopt and it will pretty much be an automatic adoption process, so you can't get more effective than that. We would also encourage support for the tax extenders package. Currently there's been a Bill initiated in the Senate, so we would support that; it includes the blenders' credit. And then, state-by-state, we would encourage states to consider ways to encourage biodiesel through IFTA fuel tax rate reductions or rebates, things of that nature. There's a little bit of a challenge getting the details that might be needed to file for those types of credits, so we would also encourage the states to consider ways to do that in a more fleet-friendly manner that allows fleets to actually comply and file for those. And then I already I mentioned LCFS types of incentives in other states and also possibly considering biodiesel blends above B20. So, with that, thank you very much for the time. Again, we give full support to biodiesel and renewable diesel as an effective way to have an immediate impact on emissions.

Jennifer Symoun

Thank you, Steve. We have about 15 minutes left for Q&A. I'm going to start off with the questions typed in, and if we have time can open up the phone lines for questions. Steve, I'll start with you since you just wrapped up. Does Ruan work with any DOE Clean Cities Coalition to help make the fuels you want to use, like biodiesel, available where your fleet want to refuel?

Steve Larsen

Yes, we have good relationships, certainly with Iowa as it's where we are headquartered, so we have great access here. Then we also work with National Clean Fleets Partnership, as well. But really biodiesel is available already everywhere that we run. We run pretty much the whole lower 48, we run into Canada a little bit. But biodiesel is not something that you need to even work at, it is already everywhere you need to be, basically. Now, the renewable diesel, as I mentioned, would take a little coordination may be with the incentives underway, but we have not seen problems with biodiesel.

Jennifer Symoun

All right thank you. Dennis we'll go on to some questions for you. And, again, if you think of questions for any of the presenters, type them in. And if any of the presenters want to jump in and respond to any of these questions, please feel free. Dennis, the first question for you, how long do DPS last?

Dennis Johnson

I think that was addressed by Cummins, as well. It should last pretty much for the life of the engine, one would hope. It depends on maintenance as well and duty cycles. Typically, a fleet will need to clean a DPF maybe every six months or a year, depending on duty cycle. And there was another question that came up about stop-and-go operation. That is a duty cycle type of question, so you will need to make sure that your monitoring how frequently the back pressure warning light is coming on and doing DPF cleaning as necessary. But clearly, highway cruise operations were the DPF can get hot for extended periods of time and the fuel control is a little more consistent, will help get more miles out of the DPF.

Jennifer Symoun

Thank you. And to what extend the aftermarket EGR and DPF delete kits have adverse impact over the health of environment? And why environmental agencies are not enforcing the sales of these devices?

Dennis Johnson

These devices are considered tampering to delete the DPF or SCR system or recalibrate the engine. EPA has a number of enforcement cases against manufacturers of these types of systems. Locally, air-quality districts there are a number of districts that have inspection maintenance programs. Those types of local enforcement opportunities can help to address fleets that are using these, or individuals are using these. EPA's enforcement actions are often focused on the sales of these devices, so going after the manufacturers of these systems. But they are detrimental to the performance of the vehicle's overall emission control strategies. So, you can have other types of impacts, because the engine is designed for the back pressure that is seen by the DPF and SCR systems, so removing it may cause changes in performance overall.

Jim Nebergall

This is Jim Nebergall from Cummins. And using those systems can void the manufacturer warranty. And with a lot of the new onboard diagnostic capability that's been in place on commercial vehicles for some time now, the onboard diagnostics can detect the systems are active because the engine is operating in a different fashion than designed. So, dashboard lights come on at least to signal to the operator. This is an issue unfortunately if the operator doesn't always have an incentive to take corrective action. There are de-rates and some other things that happen if tampering with the SCR system isn't fixed in a certain amount of time to avoid torque de-rates and other activities from the engine.

Jennifer Symoun

Thank you. I think you answered the stop and go question. Another question. Is safety and traction compromised somewhat in the LRR tires?

Dennis Johnson

Manufactures of tires combine a variety of strategies to reduce the rolling resistance of a tire. So, some things like tread pattern can be changed to improve rolling resistance. But traction isn't just about tread pattern. Traction is also a matter of compounding. So, most manufacturers are doing that balancing act of looking at what compounds perform best for rolling resistance as well as what tread patterns work best. But clearly fleets have to make decisions based on their operational needs. There are driver preferences sometimes for certain types of tires, some drivers like to see open shoulder tires in the drive axle position. For traction, however, most tire manufacturers nowadays talk about their current technology tires as being able to have traction as much as the drivers in the fleet need. So, it should not be a safety issue using low rolling resistance tires. We actually conducted a winter traction study looking at traction of tires and snow conditions, and there was not a direct correlation between rolling resistance and tractions in that study. So, fleets should have confidence that work with their tire suppliers, that there should be available low rolling resistance tires to meet their needs. I will mention as well, when I talked about low rolling resistance tires earlier, that graph that I illustrated was from using retreaded tires. We actually did that testing with low rolling resistance retreads, and we did a similar type of graph with new tires that was essentially the same, a little bit higher numbers in some cases which would probably be tested for variability. But the point is, for tractor-trailers type applications, you can get low rolling resistance new tires and low rolling resistance retreads and get essentially the same type of performance, for rolling resistance as well as traction. So, I would encourage everyone to work with your tire suppliers to consider the best range of options to meet your needs.

Jennifer Symoun

Ok, another question for you. Does EPA have studies on fuel savings from truck platooning?

Dennis Johnson

The EPA has not done studying studies on platooning. There are some other federal agencies that have looked at platooning. Platooning, when you think about it, is going to be a fleet type of opportunity to the extent fleets have trucks traveling in the same direction. We did not study platooning looking at the benefits at tractor manufacturers and engine manufacturers typically certify on an individual truck or engine basis. As you look at platooning opportunities in the future or studies that are looking in the future, there are some organizations such as DTNA that have done away with their work towards platooning, because they determined it probably wasn't going to be practical for their types of operations and they were not seeing the benefits that they were expecting from platooning. That's not to say it is not beneficial, but we are not investing any resources into the platooning area right now.

Jennifer Symoun

All right, thank you. Jim, a few questions for you. How large of factor is fueling time in the decision to adopt CNG and/or EV fleets?

Jim Nebergall

There is a longer fill time. I don't have the stats off the top of my head. I don't know if Ruan knows the exact difference between those times. But I don't know that it's that significant of a challenge considering the other activities that happen when you're refilling your vehicle and during the stop. It's not a significant detractor from what I understand.

Steve Larsen

This is Steve I can comment on that. The good CNG stations you're going to get 8 to 10 gallons a minute. So, it is a pretty comparable experience overall to the diesel fill. So, it is not been a factor. There have been other factors that come into play more than much more than that.

Electric I can't speak to yet. We don't have any electric vehicles on the road. But that's definitely been a big discussion point in our contemplation of the EVs.

Jennifer Symoun

Jim another question for you. How important will the arrival of regenerative braking / caching - ultracapacitor (Maxwell for instance/Tesla) affect local ranging diesel/hybrids in high stop/start cycle city environments?

Jim Nebergall

transient duty cycles. So, if it's a garbage truck or an urban bus where they have extremely high transient, that is more beneficial application for the hybrid because you can recover some of that energy. So, I would say like a garbage truck or a bus is on one end of the spectrum, and then a long-haul truck or a regional haul truck that has a lot of steady-state operation on interstates has the less kinetic energy and can benefit less from the hybrid system. So, it's that spectrum that becomes important on how they apply, and it also affects the architecture series or parallel. There are two different types of hybrid architectures and they benefit differently from the level of transientness.

Jennifer Symoun

All right, thank you. A question for Jim and Steve regarding natural gas vehicles. My understanding is storing natural gas, whether it be CNG or LNG, creates some challenges, due to the size of the fuel tank and the need to maintain temperatures different than the ambient air temperature.  How much are these issues a restriction on the adoption of natural gas, especially for relatively small freight vehicles (i.e. trucks)?

Steve Larsen

I can take the class 8 fleet heavy truck vantage point; we don't have small trucks. Although, I think about my personal F 150 and if I had to take part of my bed out for a tank, that would be a little bit of an issue. So, that is a challenge and on the small vehicle side. But, on the large vehicle side, Ruan typically has cabinets and back behind the cab we run all day cab units for our CNG fleet, so we have space to put the cabinet behind the cab. That's done a little bit for safety and it's a logical place to put the tanks. We stack; might have three tanks in there, three or four tanks. You do want to make sure that they're accessible, because you need to perform inspections every 36,000 miles. So, for practical application, as long as you spec it right and have all your connections working, it is not really an issue.

Jim Nebergall

Another thing I could echo is the size, the weight, and the cost, in certain cases do limited adoption, because you do have to again go all in. And this is technology you want to adopt as a fleet. And you have to work within those constraints of the size and the weight and the cost you are dealing with.

Jennifer Symoun

Thank you. We already touched a little on this question, but I'll open this up to who wants to comment regarding performance kits that disable emission control equipment to approve fuel efficiency. Are there any tampering prevention strategies and techniques to evaluate prevalence?

Ezra Finkin

This is Ezra with DTF. On that issue I will say, and I believe it was referenced earlier, that it's illegal to sell anything that disables emission controls, but I believe it is also in violation of the Clean Air Act to actually install some of these devices. So, while it may improve fuel efficiency, if it disables emission controls it is in violation. On behalf of the diesel industry we very much discourage folks from doing that.

Dennis Johnson

And to add to that, this is Dennis Johnson. Earlier I mentioned inspection of maintenance programs. While not specifically advocated for modern trucks, opacity testing is a method of looking at the amount of light that's blocked across the tailpipe. For a truck that has removed a diesel particulate filter, there should be a clear difference in terms of the amount of light blockage within opacity type test. The state of California has adopted, I believe, very low opacity limits for modern what should be DPF equipped trucks. And those type of strategies can help a local air quality district most likely identify trucks that have been tampered with. As well s I believe was also mentioned earlier, that trouble codes will most likely be set or check engine lights will most likely be set for a truck that has been tampered with. So, if an inspection maintenance program does look at whether or not trouble codes are set, that would be another way to likely identify a truck that has been tampered with.

Jennifer Symoun

Thank you. Any other comments on that question? We only have a minute left. Ezra, I know you had typed in some responses to questions. I will ask one question, I think you had answered it, but I think it's an interesting question to put out there for anybody to answer. Do you foresee shortages of clean diesel fuel because shipping will be required lower emissions in 2020?

Ezra Finkin

Sure, just as background, the international Maritime Organization, beginning in 2020 next year, requires the use of lower sulfur fuels in international shipping. And there's been some concern as to availability and price of diesel fuel in traditional on-highway applications. To the best of our ability, we collected a lot of research and looking at what others have said about this. I don't believe folks are predicting a shortage of supply of diesel fuel for the trucking fleet or even off-road fleets. There's some discussion as to what this rule may mean in the short term for the price of not only diesel but gasoline. But, in terms of fuel availability, there will be adequate supplies of diesel fuel for its traditional use and transportation in the US.

Jennifer Symoun

Thank you to all of our presenters and thank you all for attending today's seminar. The recorded version of this event will be available within the next few weeks on the Talking Freight website. Registration is not yet available for the June webinar but once it is information will be sent through the Freight Planning LISTSERV. The Freight Planning LISTSERV is the primary means of sharing information about upcoming seminars. I encourage you to join the LISTSERV if you have not already done so.

Updated: 08/06/2019
Updated: 8/6/2019
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