Ten mpg is now feasible … may save you money!
Truckers go for gas-saving tech - ROUTE PLANNING, STREAMLINED DESIGNS, BETTER TIRES CAN BOOST A SEMI’S MILEAGE
Bill Rethwisch bought a new Kenworth T660 big-rig for $119,000. The truck’s streamlined wedge shape boosts fuel mileage from 4.5 mpg in his old Peterbilt to 6.5 mpg, which saves him upward of $2,000 a month at the pump.
If you think gas is expensive, be thankful you’re not a trucker. Filling up an 18-wheel, 80,000-pound leviathan can top $1,300 these days.
… the price of diesel has risen more than twice as much as gasoline in the past year, selling at well over $4 a gallon. With little hope of a near-term decline – oil hit a record $135.09 a barrel Thursday – the run-up is causing panic and prompting radical cultural and technological shifts in the struggling trucking industry.
… truck owners and operators fed up with getting 5 mpg are delving into long-ignored subjects like aerodynamics, slower cruising speeds and more efficient tires.
Engineers and manufacturers furiously are developing new fuel-friendly technology. And commercial fleets are using high-tech software to calculate every aspect of their drivers’ routes, down to where they should fill up and where they should stop for the night.
… with U.S. trucks burning more than 20 billion gallons of diesel a year and trucking industry bankruptcies soaring, shifting to more efficient vehicles can be a matter of business survival.
Tommy Johnson’s new fuel-saving invention
Tommy Johnson’s idea for a fuel-saving device may have arrived in a dream, but its ability to cut down on fuel use is very real.
Fuel-saving find
West Fargo inventor Ernie Brookins has produced a hydraulic transmission that can power vehicles without the engine running full time.
… could potentially save drivers 50 percent in fuel costs.
Brookins’ hybrid drive system captures, compresses, and stores “wasted” drive-train energy produced when a vehicle’s engine is running. “We’re going to drive away without starting the engine,” he said. Brookins clicks a couple of toggle switches and away we go.
Before trading that gas hog, try putting it on a diet
Every day I hear of someone either trading their gas-guzzling SUV for something more practical, or someone is asking me if they should. With gas prices headed up, it sure is tempting to downsize your ride. But before you do, try some less radical and less expensive gas-saving methods first.
Watch out for scam inventions … can you tell the difference?
Will Marre, Author of: GOOD FORTUNE: Socially-Strategic Capitalism Can Save the World
Corporate Social Responsibility is a radical change as big as the industrial revolution. The entire way we think about business, government, and education will transform. Be prepared to leap!
Will Marre believes that a “perfect storm” of social and economic forces is driving world change at an accelerating rate, requiring a new blueprint for the future. He is showing organizations how a future of environmental sustainability, increased world health, and educational and economic opportunity create the greatest economic opportunity in history. Marre calls this the natural evolution from Industrial Capitalism to Socially-Strategic Capitalism. He asserts, “This demands a new brand of 21st century leadership producing value through Legacy Capital, innovation and invention that literally reinvents every product we consume and every service we use.”
“The companies that will contribute the most to saving our future will be a company that knows its unique value,” Marre affirms. “A company that generates fierce customer loyalty. A company with the confidence to redefine its industry. A company that carves its own market. A company capable of sustaining abundance.”
With all the new found interest in our personal ability to buy food and products affordably, a new found self evaluation must take place before progress can be made. Why are we compelled to buy “STUFF” that does not contribute to our meals, health and utilities? Are we so self consumed that the commercial marketers can count on our compulsion to buy nonsense and feel good about it by taking pills? America has been the epitome of self-justified consumerism for decades. America must accept that their place on the consumer, self-consumed tree of life is dropping a few branches. China and India are clambering for the top branch. The Sino-Russian alliance is reshuffling world economics. India is its own boom town. The emergence of ‘middle class’ in these countries is toppling the middle class in America. Why? Americans have become soft and impractical. Americans are consumer robots that are mesmerized by ‘image over substance’. That is exactly where America’s marketing geniuses have brought us. Some Americans are waking up to a world known by their grand parents and great grand parents. Frugal is no longer a ‘quaint concept’. Gas prices and their effect on food and necessities is the slap in the face we need to come out of the hypnosis we have been enjoying.
America has been hitting the snooze alarm too long.
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May 27th, 2008 at 7:15 am
[...] BossKitty at BlueBloggin tell us how truck owners and operators are delving into long-ignored gas saving subjects like aerodynamics, slower cruising speeds and all the snake oil scams to increase mileage. This could lower your food prices and consumables; Ten mpg is now feasible … may save you money! [...]
September 29th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Good Post. Thanks for the info