Obama seeks fuel efficiency standards for large trucks

Source: Detroit News

Washington --President Barack Obama on Friday ordered work to begin on setting first-ever fuel-efficiency standards for heavy-duty trucks. He also called for progress toward establishing higher standards for cars and light trucks in model years 2017 through 2025.

"It's possible in the next 20 years for vehicles to use half the fuel and produce half the pollution that they do today," Obama said at a Rose Garden ceremony where he signed a presidential memorandum.

A 2007 energy law requires the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to set standards for medium- and heavy-duty trucks by 2016. Obama's directive also requires the Environmental Protection Agency to set limits on tailpipe emissions. Obama wants the rules done by July 2011.
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Last May, the White House struck a deal with the state of California and automakers to set national standards for 2012-16.

California agreed to waive its right to set its own tailpipe emissions limits because the federal government essentially adopted them as the national standard.

The deal sets fleet-wide fuel economy requirements at 34.1 mpg by 2016 -- about a 40 percent hike over current levels.










Read more: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100522/AUTO01/5220323/1022/Obama-seeks-fuel-efficiency-standards-for-large-trucks

I always thought that better fuel efficiency was a good thing.

http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm/3929/GOP-Wants-Answers-on-Auto-Emission-Deal

Remember the burned roast at the end of "Time Bandits"? That's Issa.

it will never fly. In six years from now every truck would need to become a hybrid. I don't see this happening. Especially if Newt Gingrich is president.

Err... no- trucks can get that mileage without recourse to hybrid technology.

Not without hybrid technology.

So that railroads would be used for interstate transportation and semi-trucks would take containers and trailers to the end destination.

Truck makers already work hard to increase fuel economy as it is a really big selling point. Line haul trucks now can frequently get 6+ mpg, and many can get more, but many heavy haul and specialized trucks are lucky to get just 2mpg. Some trucks lose fuel economy to drivers that idle too much, drive in the wrong gear all day, or leave the engine fan switched on. Still other trucks spend a lot of time running their PTOs, during which fuel gets burned, but the truck will often not move at all, or move in a "granny gear."

Trucks are not like cars, where the majority of, say, a GM vehicle is made up of GM parts, the majority of a HD truck is made up of commodity parts off the shelf. The one hybrid system out there right now is not very tightly integrated with the engine. Not because Eaton doesn't know how to do it, but because it would require establishing a standard interface and making more than ten competing manufacturers adhere to it. Besides that, the hybrid system out there is VERY limited in power output and can only be used with medium duty trucks, not heavy duty. HD truck engines put out anywhere from 1400 to 2000 ft-lbs of torque at the flywheel. An effective hybrid would need an electric motor capable of a good fraction of that and enough batteries to sustain a long pull. Right now the most viable thing similar to a hybrid is called HLA--hydraulic launch assist. When the truck slows down, some braking is performed by pressurizing hydraulic accumulators, which are then discharged through a hydraulic motor on launch to help push the truck. Those systems take up a lot of space and while they save fuel, they're most effective in stop and go applications, think trash trucks and buses, where MPG fuel economy isn't a factor--usually fuel will be measures in gallons per hour or day. Those systems are also very bulky and hard to fit onto modern trucks with already bulky emissions systems.

You also have an aerodynamic issue. Cars are the same shape all the time until they're wrecked. Trucks are the same shape all of the time unless they have some kind of fold-out equipment, a drop axle, or a flat-bed trailer that you can place anything on. And house movers' fuel economy is especially sensitive to the amount of wind that day.

The fuel efficiency of all the major engine makers took a pretty significant hit with the round of emissions rules a couple of years ago. Most makers went to aggressive EGR to get NOx emissions down, and DPFs to clean up the particulates that resulted. EGR negatively impacts fuel economy because all of that soot it creates is fuel that became soot instead of helping to propel the truck. It gets worse because the DPF occasionally has to be cleaned out in what's called a regeneration and a stationary regeneration can burn a significant amount of fuel without getting anywhere. They're just now selling the newer systems with SCR. They still use EGR, but they tuned it back and recovered some fuel economy. However, the SCR requires 2% urea, (called DEF) along with the fuel. The DEF is in a separate tank, but manufacturing the DEF will produce all-new pollution of its own that MPG numbers will not reveal.

Seeing as the administration couldn't handle the complexity of even discussing single payer in the HCR debate, I doubt they'll handle this very well either.