The effect of truck dieselization for three levels of diesel penetration into each of the eight classes of trucks is modeled. Diesel and total truck sales, population, mileage and yearly fuel usage data are aggregated by four truck classes representing light, medium, light-heavy and heavy-heavy classes.
Four fuel economy scenario's for different technological improvements were studied. Improvement of fuel economy for light and heavy-heavy duty vehicle classes provides significant total fuel savings. Truck dieselization of light and light-heavy duty vehicle classes provides the largest improvement of fuel usage due to the fact that they have large numbers of vehicles and presently have few diesels.
Total car and truck fuel usage in the 1980's shows roughly a constant demand with cars decreasing due to improved new fleet fuel economy and trucks increasing due to a larger population with better fuel economy due to dieselization and improved technology. These trends show total on-highway diesel fuel usage shifting from 13% in 1980 to 25-40% in 1990 depending upon the level of dieselization of cars and trucks.