While the spotlight for the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE) Run on Less Regional demonstration was on the 10 trucks’ performance over the 18-day event, it was the drivers who were ultimately responsible for the overall 8.3 miles per gallon (mpg) the vehicles achieved.
“You can give me [all the aerodynamics] and special paint, but if I put my foot to the floor, it’s not going to matter,” Mark Casey, a driver with Hirschbach, told FreightWaves. “It’s about that [butt] in the seat.”
One of the interesting aspects of the run, and which made comparing the 10 vehicles more difficult for NACFE, was the varying applications the vehicles were used in. While the run was for regional haul, defined as less than 300 miles, Mike Roeth, executive director of NACFE, said there was a wide variety of uses for those vehicles, and that is why the organization didn’t release mpg numbers for individual trucks.