Fuel and Freight Efficiency - Past, Present and Future Perspectives

North American on-highway tractor fuel efficiency has evolved significantly from its 1950’s roots to today’s Department of Energy SuperTruck prototypes and current Original Equipment Manufacturer production models. Innovating tomorrow’s Environmental Protection Agency Green House Gas compliant and economically efficient designs require understanding and manipulating the complex interactions between multiple systems in the context of both how the vehicles are formally evaluated and how and where they are actually used. This SAE L. Ray Buckendale Lecture paper provides an in depth overview of fuel economy and freight efficiency evaluation methods, their contexts and limitations, especially with respect to comparisons between the different methods. The paper reviews the current state of the art in production on-highway fuel efficiency optimization while also providing insights on future demands and opportunities in vehicle system & infrastructure designs, test & analysis, instrumentation and legislation.