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Reversing Course

By Mark O'Connell - Thursday August 14, 2008

Do you buy Cummins' engines in your heavy-duty vehicles? Were you counting on avoiding the whole SCR/urea issue in 2010 buy spec'ing Cummins ISX engines with enhanced EGR? Hate to break it to you, but you're going to have to rethink your plans. Yesterday Cummins announced that it is changing its strategy for meeting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2010 diesel emissions requirements for lower NOx levels. The company had previously announced that it would meet the 2010 standards for its medium-duty engines using selective catalytic reduction (SCR) and urea, while its heavy-duty engines would rely solely on enhanced EGR and therefore avoid the use of SCR and liquid urea, which many consider cumbersome and inconvenient. The beauty...
The Best Thing Since Seat Belts

By Mark O'Connell - Thursday July 31, 2008

Okay, quick quiz: What's the difference between "Roll Stability Control" and "Electronic Stability Control?" Do you know the answer? Here's a hint: Roll Stability Control (RSC) is sometimes referred to as "roll-only stability," while Electronic Stability Control (ESC) is sometimes referred to as "full stability." Still stumped? Well, you're not alone. It turns out a lot of fleet professionals have a hard time distinguishing between the two, which is why Bendix has recently published a white paper (available here within the week) called “Road Map for the Future: Making the Case for Full-Stability.” The new paper, as Bendix described to the media in a conference call this week, will help fleet managers understand how the systems...
How to Change the World

By Mark O'Connell - Thursday July 24, 2008

The other day I visited Madison, our state capitol, to meet with Maria Redmond, the Biofuels Sector Specialist for the state's Office of Energy Independence, because I wanted to learn what my state is doing to address the fuel crisis. Our Governor, Jim Doyle, had recently issued an Executive Order directing state fleets to increase their use of renewable fuels, especially biodiesel and E85 ethanol. One of Redmond's jobs is to work with state fleet directors to make sure they are meeting the Governor's goals, both in terms of adding alternative fuel vehicles to the state's fleet and making sure that state employees are actually using alternative fuels in those vehicles. It's a big job, but I was very impressed by the way Redmond addressed...
Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

By Mark O'Connell - Thursday July 17, 2008

When you visit a dozen or more fleet maintenance shops in the course of the year as I do, you see all kinds of facilities. Some are bright, shiny and new, and some are dark, dingy and old. The same goes for the offices where the fleet maintenance managers hang their hats; some are neat, organized and expansive, and some are cramped and crowded and you can hardly find a place to sit down. But I have learned not to judge a book by its cover, because sometimes the most unimpressive-looking maintenance programs have the most impressive maintenance practices. Case in point: last week I visited a very affluent community to meet the supervisor of transportation for the local school district. The transportation facility was in one of the older...
Don't Blame Biofuels

By Mark O'Connell - Wednesday July 9, 2008

Timing is everything. Last week I was reading about a new report released by the World Bank that claimed that biofuel production has caused world food prices to increase by 75 percent. This week I read about a new report released by the US Departments of Energy and Agriculture that insists that "the expansion in ethanol and biodiesel consumption is estimated to have increased the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all food by 0.10-0.15 percentage point." How do we make sense of this disparity, and which numbers should we believe? I think you need to look at the sources of these two studies and consider their objectives. The World Bank provides economic and technical assistance to reduce poverty in developing countries. It has also been plagued...
Cutting Off Their Noses to Spite Their Faces

By Mark O'Connell - Wednesday July 2, 2008

The irony is so think you'd need the "jaws of life" to cut through it. On the same day that automakers reported their catastrophic sales slide for the month of June, the result of skyrocketing gasoline prices and inefficient product offerings, they also filed their objections to the government's new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, claiming that improving the fuel economy of the vehicles they manufacture would be disastrous to the auto industry, to consumers and to the nation's economy. Are they serious? Who writes their material? Don't they realize that their sales are nosediving precisely because Americans are rejecting low-mileage vehicles in the face of $4.00 a gallon gasoline? Remember a few months ago when a reporter...
The Problem With Technician Competitions

By Mark O'Connell - Wednesday June 25, 2008

In the course of updating our State Maintenance Council directory (available in our July issue, and online at www.fleetmag.com/council/), my Assistant Editor, Scott DeLaruelle, heard some comments that aroused some concern. Scott was calling State Trucking Associations to find out if they had their own State Maintenance Council, then if they did he was calling the Maintenance Council contact to get an update on the Council's officers and contact information, and to ask if they ran a State Technician Competition for their members. Thirty-six states have Maintenance Councils, 14 don't. Of the 36 that have Maintenance Councils, seven run competitions, and 29 don't. Out of those 29 states that don't run technician competitions, a handful...
Cat Turns Yellow... er

By Mark O'Connell - Wednesday June 18, 2008

The big news last week that Caterpillar plans to exit the on-highway diesel engine market as of 2010 probably didn't come as a complete surprise to anyone in the trucking industry. Over the past several months, as other diesel engine manufacturers were loudly proclaiming their plans to meet the Environmental Protection Agency's 2010 emissions standards, Cat had been notably quiet. In fact, so little news has come out of Peoria in the past year that I had started to wonder if the company had shut down its public relations department. In last week's press release from the company, Cat's Group President, Douglas R. Oberhelman, said, "Caterpillar and our dealers will continue to provide product support and service beyond 2010 for all...
Parts is Parts

By Mark O'Connell - Monday June 9, 2008

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit a pretty remarkable place: ArvinMeritor's aftermarket parts distribution center in Florence, KY. My publisher, Larry Greenberger, and I were invited to Florence by ArvinMeritor Commercial Vehicle Systems executives to get a good look at the volume of business they do, and they way they keep all those parts flowing from factory to end-user. What took me by surprise is that the Florence distribution center is an all-brands operation. You won't just find ArvinMeritor-branded parts at this operation; what you'll find is ArvinMeritor parts mixed in with a whole lot of other manufacturer's parts, so that ArvinMeritor can deliver exactly what the customer needs, even if someone else makes it. There...
Laying Rubber

By Mark O'Connell - Tuesday May 27, 2008

Okay, I admit, I was a little disappointed with the "ride 'n' drive" event I attended last week in Joliet, IL. I had been invited by the folks at Meritor WABCO to see a demonstration of their latest safety systems, including Electronic Stability Control, Roll Stability Control, Roll Stability Support, and the OnGuard (TM) Collision Safety System with adaptive cruise control, and the demo was to take place at the Route 66 Drag Strip--how cool is that? Well, it turns out that demo didn't actually take place on the drag strip itself, but in the parking lot adjacent to the strip. But the disappointment was fleeting, because once I got into the demo trucks to experience Meritor WABCO's systems first-hand, I was greatly impressed. First came a...