How can fleets make informed decisions when buying fuel saving devices and technologies if they are relying on unreliable data?

On the HDT Talks Trucking podcast, guest Daryl Bear talks about one solution to that problem.

Bear is the lead engineer and chief operating officer of Mesilla Valley Transportation Solutions. He’s a mechanical engineer with 20 years’ experience in motorsports and automotive research and development. From his background in race-car engineering and testing comes a more efficient and accurate method of quantifying fuel savings for heavy trucks.

"If there were more accurate or easier ways to do it, that's what we would be doing," Bear said. "We've found the testing methods that the trucking industry has relied on up till now have really been quite unreliable."

Bear said he's found that testing like you would a racing car can quantify even the smallest change.

When you buy an off the shelf product, fleets We often hear fleets say they automatically reduce vendor’s fuel-saving estimates by half.

"Fuel savings is an exact science. There are no feelings in it. The problem is, people really haven't understood the science or quantified it. As a race car engeiner ... I was in a good position to understand these things. I started noticing strange patterns... and the science just unraveled. The whole industry is measuring as a percent, and it doesn't work with the science. When you look at forces and energy, all of a sudden, you can predict what a product is going to save in a fleet."

Learn more in this episode of the HDT Talks Trucking podcast: