01/25/2024
I. Introduction
Co-founders Joel Morrow and Alec Costerus conceived Alpha Drivers Testing & Consulting and Alpha Drivers Transportation companies. Alpha Drivers Transportation is the actual on-road, freight carrying, DOT-authorized for-hire interstate carrier testing platform for Alpha Drivers Testing & Consulting. Indeed, we go beyond the academic laboratory to provide innovative product and technological solutions from a practical point of view.
Key among Alpha Drivers Transportation’s testing platform is a 2023 Volvo VNL62T760 tractor with I-Torque specs that include a Volvo D13 with turbo-compounding, 2.16 tall/fast rear axle ratio, behind a 14-speed Volvo I-Shift automated manual transmission. Additionally, for even greater fuel economy across a broader spectrum of on-highway duty cycles, we opted for a liftable pusher axle in a 6x2 configuration as part of the Adaptive Loading package.
II. Purple Haze vs. others via Fuel Gauges
Purple Haze’s actual customer’s performance as per Let’s Truck’s Fuel Gauges database during the Fourth Quarter of 2023 was superlative when measured against other hyper-miler OTR in-service diesel-powered trucks.
We then took the average of the 30-, 60-, and 90-day, Year 2023, and Lifetime periods to create an aggregate “Score.” The results are graphically shown. Purple Haze’s 30-, 60-, 90-day, 10.52 MPG over 108,888 year-to-date IFTA miles in Fuel Gauges, and its 10.38 MPG lifetime average over 134,378 lifetime miles fuel economies compared to the other leading hyper-milers. Interestingly, the other trucks have a decided potential advantage with their own aero’d-up trailers. Conversely, Purple Haze has been utilizing a mix of our Volvo-wrapped “What-If a Trucker Designed a Truck?” trailer and our customer’s company-owned trailers that have minimal aerodynamics. Asking the question differently, “What if we really aero’d-up our trailer to achieve maximum aerodynamic fuel efficiency? As it is, we spotted the other trucks an easy half to a full mile per gallon. Hmm, “what-if . . . ?”
Another significant point of comparison is that all four of the competitive trucks run a similar duty cycle as Purple Haze. Astutely, none of the trucks run faster than necessary, the mix of cargo weights is comparable, and all run some form of aero trailers.
The first take-away is that Volvo’s 2023 VNL with I-Torque specs in Purple Haze is the definitive industry leader! With Purple Haze’s accomplishments, Volvo definitively has the most fuel-efficient, production, in-service, OTR, diesel truck available in North America, and that comes even without the anticipated up to 10% fuel savings that the new generational VNL offers. Adding 10% to our May-Dec 2023 10.94 gross MPG potentially projects to put the successor truck to Purple Haze at an OMG 12.0 MPG – annual average fuel economy! With full aero, we'd be talking 13 MPG, an un-heard of number that would even outpace the OEMs' SuperTrucks! OMG is right!
Second, Purple Haze’s performance is based on actual, real-world, over-the-road, long-haul freight deliveries gathered from our telematics system. This is where the proverbial rubber meets the road! We demonstrated the utility of the unparalleled I-Torque spec as a total package: D13TC engine, I-Shift with crawler gears, and fast 2.15/2.16 rear axle ratio, combined with an optional Adaptive Loading 6x2 configuration. This exceeds mere theoretical as this is routinely duplicable on a daily basis, as more fully explained below.
Third, Alpha Drivers Testing & Consulting’s dataset furnished through Alpha Drivers Transportation’s telemetric system represents the ultimate user-provided data and analytics. Multiple independently-sourced, cross-corroborated data ensures both accuracy and integrity.
III. Purple Haze’s Performance Data Dive
With the Daily Telematics Results summarized by Month, we segregated our fuel consumption among driving and idling. Some observations:
1. Our gross (driving and idling) and net (moving only) fuel economies are 10.86 and 10.94 MPG, respectively.
2. Our average speed for all engine hours is 54.6 MPH. This should not be confused with average highway cruise speed.
3. Our average fuel rate while driving and at idle were 4.99 and 0.69 gallons per hour, respectively.
4. Idling is interesting. First, when looking at idle time to all engine time, this is exceptionally low at 5.00%. Idle time is important as during idling, the engine runs at less than optimal operating conditions and temperatures, which affects emissions system maintenance and engine wear. Second, when looking at fuel consumed while idling vs all fuel consumed, this is considerably less than 1.0%. When compared to the widespread practice of running the engine all night, every night, often at elevated idle engine rpms, this can amount to 250 gallons of extra, non-productive fuel per month, amounting to a wasteful $12,000 in 2023 had we followed such a practice. These results underscore the significant advantages that APUs and eAPUs provide in both a) reducing fuel consumption (% by diesel); and b) reducing maintenance costs (% by time). Our IdleFree battery-powered eAPU that is augmented by Merlin Solar panels make truck idling, excessive regens, emissions repairs, along with disturbing odors, noise and vibration, obsolete.
Delving deeper into the Purple Haze’s Year 2023 performance, using in-vehicle, daily telematics data isolating fuel consumed while driving (for the most accurate determinant of fuel economy) against our load dispatches and bills of lading, we are able to construct a weight-normalized fuel economy scatter chart.
The scatter chart is a unique performance representation of Alpha Drivers. Here, each dot represents a day’s results plotting fuel economy (MPG) vs gross vehicle combination weight (GCVW) for the period of May 10 through December 31, 2023, the entirety of the period during which we had a working telematics solution aboard Purple Haze. Fuel economy data is on the left, Y1 axis, in blue.
We also plotted the freight efficiency on the right, Y2 axis, in red, in ton-miles per gallon, vs GCVW.
The power of this chart is that with the scattered daily data, the computer can draw a mathematical best-fit curve through the data to plot a weight-normalized line to develop an expected fuel economy value for every load weight and GCVW, from empty to 80,000 lbs GCVW. The more efficient the vehicle, the higher the curves.
As you can see, when you have a diversity of daily data, we can predict fuel economy for any given trip. Naturally, as shown in the scattered data points, some days will be better while some are worse than the expected performance. These anticipated daily variances can arise from any number of causes, such as load weight, weather (wind or precipitation), road conditions and road material, elevation changes, traffic conditions, road speed, trailing equipment condition and aerodynamics fitment, etc. However, over time, the greater the number of daily scatter points, the more accurate the predictive model should become.
This is one reason why one cannot point to one single day of great fuel economy as indicative of a trend. However proud one may understandably be for a fuel-efficient day, one must consider a longer period. This is why Fuel Gauges measures fuel efficiency in 30 or more day periods. Mathematically, a single day is a point. It takes two days plot a line. Three days datapoints can create a plane. But it takes multiple days to constitute a trend.
Interestingly, once we account for load weight in the freight efficiency plot, this produces a largely straight line. This suggests that of all the myriad of fuel economy effects, GCVW is faraway the single-largest determinant (where R2 = 78%) of fuel economy.
In addition to fuel economy and freight efficiency, the chart also has an envelope around the weighted average fuel economy line (blue dashed line). The standard deviation above and below the weighted average statistically encompasses 68.3% of the data in a normal distribution about the mean. Here again, we can predict a range of fuel economy for a given load weight or CGVW. For example, for an 80,000 lb. GCVW, we can say that there is a 68% probability that the fuel economy will be between 8.2 and 12.4 MPG, with an average of 10.38 MPG. Further, at our mile-weighted average 57,837 pounds GCVW during the May-December period, the 68% of the time expected fuel economy will be between 9 and 13 MPG, where we averaged 10.71 MPG.
The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) reports national average fuel economy by operating class. For example, Class 8 vehicles are among Class 8 operating class, whereas a Class 8 vehicle hauling only 60,000 GCVW remains in that Class 8 operating class. To gain more insight in how the national fuel economy ranges according to GCVW, we compared ATRI’s operating class national fuel economy to those values to Purple Haze’s fuel economy by GCVW. That ATRI operating class average fuel economy is a light blue line where it peaks at 7.1 MPG between 60-70,000 pounds GCVW.
Lastly, a table of just Volvo fuel efficient trucks in Fuel Gauges with three of them driven by Alpha Drivers’ personnel provides another window into Volvo’s evolutionary success story in the real-world, progressing from a 2011 with 3.25 RAR, to today’s industry-leading 2.16 RAR I-Torque. The improvement is even more remarkable when you consider that Alec’s 2011 780 pulled his super-aerodynamic dry van trailer with his patented trailer fairing, full-size NoseCone, and full-size Trailer Tail; the Purple Haze pulled a combination of the Volvo “What-if” dry van with only a trailer skirt and minimal side wings and customer’s dry van trailers with only a de minimis side skirts. To be sure, my trailer benefitted from a full mile per gallon with this aero. As a result, the evolutionary progress exhibited in Purple Haze is even more impressive on an apples-to-apples basis than the data suggests. OMG, can you even comprehend 12 MPG in the new gen VNL?
IV. Purple Haze’s Performance Bottom-Line Impact
Let’s discuss this scatter chart more fully to demonstrate Purple Haze’s monetary impact in the market.
When we compare Purple Haze’s average fuel economy of 10.7 MPG at 65,000 GCVW to the ATRI average of 7.1 MPG, Purple Haze’s 3.6 MPG positive operating advantage is 51% higher than the national average at that weight!
Measured against our nearly 109,378 miles travelled during the Year 2023 in Purple Haze plus another 21,000 miles in a leased truck , using our average discounted fuel price of $3.73/gallon, that’s about $23,100 saved vs the national average. Of course, without a fuel purchase discount program, that competitive advantage swells to $25,300.
The take-away here is that with a 3.6 MPG advantage, Purple Haze leverages that to a $23,100 advantage over the national average. This fuel savings amounted to $1,925 each month for the year that I can assure is much better in our pocket than the oil companies’.
But wait . . . there’s more value than meeting the P&L. According to trucking accounting firm ATBS, on average, only 28% of an owner-operator’s revenue carries to the bottom-line. That’s rather good compared to ATRI’s small fleets with less than 26 trucks whose operating margin before taxes was 9.3% in 2022, a value that undoubtedly will shrink when ATRI publishes its 2023’s financial results. This underscores the fact that owner-operators’ competitive advantage lies in efficiency, while fleets operate on an economy of scale model.
At 28%, an owner-operator would have to generate 3.5 times more revenue to achieve an equal amount of savings. So, $23,100 of savings equates to $80,850 of revenue. At $2.00/mile freight rate, the truck must travel an additional 44,900 miles (assuming 10% deadhead miles) just to break-even with the $23,100 in fuel savings that Purple Haze attained over the national average.
How long does it take to make up an added 44,900 miles? About four and a half months. No problem, just take out a calendar, add four to five months making it 16-17 months and call it good? If only time was not a constraint. In this case, it’s not even possible to make up for lost time because, as Porky Pig eloquently said, “That’s all folks!”
V. Market Feedback
One criticism that we have received from fellow truckers is that we only haul light freight. As seen in the scatter chart, that assertion is entirely false; this is precisely the power of this weight normalized fuel economy chart! No more can anyone cogently make the “but you only haul light loads” argument or ask the question “what kind of fuel economy will I get hauling 80,000 pounds?”
Another criticism is that we drive slowly all the time. Yes, sometimes. Indeed, with our customers’ dispatch times, pre-established pickup and delivery appointments, it does allow us to “drive as slowly as possible and only as fast as necessary.” If we did drive faster, we might arrive at our pre-established appointed stops sooner, only to sit and wait longer. The only time that it makes financial sense to drive faster is when you can translate that time saved into revenue-producing time, which very rarely happens. In practice, the left lane cowboys might pass you (several times a day, in fact) but that extra road speed seldom equates to further miles down the road or added revenue. Some argue that they can get more rest; our team operation enables us to run 24 hours a day, so that argument is moot.
Assuming, just for the sake of argument, even if we could run more miles and get more rest while sitting for longer periods, does running harder translate to significantly more revenue – $80,850 more! – to offset the additional $23,100 annual fuel expense described above, not to mention the higher maintenance cost associated with higher speeds, and the increased driver stress? Not for a second! This would be the epitome of running harder, not smarter.
We’ve heard the nonsensical assertions that we limit ourselves to the Midwest, and if we ran in New England, Pennsylvania, or out West that we could not achieve that level of fuel performance. The 44 states in which Purple Haze travelled is shown; we missed only 4 of the Continental 48 states in just this one Year 2023.
What all these assertions are, rather, is an attempt by some to justify one’s own inability (and unwillingness) to achieve such hyper-fuel economy so they feel comfortable in poor fuel economy, to rationalize their cool-looking long-nosed hood purchase, and even to justify their overnight idling.
VI. Keys to Success
Achieving high fuel economy includes proper, detailed vehicle specifications. It also requires a mindset that requires proper load selection and dispatching, speed management, proper driver behavior during non-driving periods (got APU, eAPU, bunk heater, solar?). Based upon years of experience, we consistently achieve fuel efficiency because we strategized, designed, and implemented a plan to attain that goal. Moreover, we routinely offer these keys to success to help others become more profitable in their business operations.
Some keys that have been vital to Purple Haze’s fuel economy success – indeed, market-leading, superlative dominance – are:
• Preventative maintenance to maintain “optimal” specs, not simply to factory specs.
• Spec’d acutely for our on-highway specific duty cycle: engine, AMT, RAR, aero, configuration, driveline, tires, suspension, fifth wheel placement, lubricants, fuel additives, drivers’ behavior, company culture re: efficiency, load selection, among others. The I-Torque specs provide drivetrain versatility that allows vehicle the ability to perform multiple roles without needing to swap trucks. No compromise between productivity and efficiency!
• Run as slow as possible, only as fast a necessary – optimize the situation! Ask whether running faster is justifiable in today’s freight market if you have not already secured the next load. Evaluate the productivity time vs fuel efficiency equation.
• Industry partners’ aftermarket products (subject for separate posts):
o AirDog by PureFlow Technologies, Inc.
o Phillips and Temro: IdleFree
o Merlin Solar, Merlin Solar Technologies
o BASF: lubricants, BASF
o Dana: Dana Commercial Vehicle Prods
o Michigan MD Alignment
Dr. Preload
MD Alignment Services Inc.
o Hot Shot's Secret: Everyday Diesel Treatment, FR3, LX4, etc.
o FlowBelow tractor aerodynamic device, FlowBelow | Reduce Fuel Cost with Fuel-saving Aerodynamics
• Deep understanding of operational data
• Capitalizing on strengths: team, market niche, value-added service, agent/broker relationships
• Fuel purchase discount program: beyond just the network, fuel purchase optimization
Alpha Drivers’ principals are available for:
• manufacturer’s product testing; and,
• owner-operators and fleets product and fuel economy consultations.
Contact Alec Costerus of Alpha Drivers Testing & Consulting at:
[email protected].
