Originally Posted by Checkerboard Strangler
Originally Posted by Mechanic
CS,

Those trucks may be a "romantic antique" to you but I suggest you take a long look at how your "possibles" get to where you're accustomed to finding them.


---No need. I am already keenly aware of this.
That doesn't change the fact that newer technology is emerging.....
Quote
The "bottom line" of this thread is - and remains - the impact of OA-proposed "fuel efficiency/air quality regs impact upon our economy. Any increase in the "cost of transportation" has to be passed on to the consumer. For decades our freight system has been predicated upon a "cost/benefit" ratio - with the independent trucker being the "horse" in the team. Recent regs cited pretty well kill all the horses - except for union ones - so consumers haven't any "options" on their essential purchases. >Mech

And the bottom line is, it does not matter if those costs get passed along to the consumer due to improvements in technology or due to wildly fluctuating fuel prices, or due to the march of technology through the marketplace.

Or....? DOES IT MATTER?

Hmmmmmm....turns out it does matter a great deal and here's why:

Those fuel prices don't "fluctuate" so much as they are really just getting higher and higher and higher all the time.

Truckers moving into better technology is a whole lot different than truckers getting soaked for higher fuel prices.

In the former, the cost of the higher priced fuel gets passed on to the consumer, forever!

In the latter, the technology eventually becomes cheaper as it gradually gains traction in the marketplace. It's no different than those five thousand dollar DVD burners which eventually turn into $29.95 DVD burners.....

Kinda of a neat and tight analogy - until you realize a "DVD burner" or a "Betamax" - isn't a truck required to haul 80K lbs of freight uphill and down at acceptable traffic speeds. Nor are trucks "low material input" devices very responsive to the "economy of scale" in manufacture. Nor are they anywhere as cheap as a couple of grands' worth of electronic goobers intended to amuse some hobbyist/snob either.

Trucks are serious six digit/unit capital investments with a finite life-span and a (increasingly) steep depreciation curve. (The proposed legislation cited makes that curve a cliff - at least to the Owner-Operator Community !) All current generation OTR/heavy haul trucks are "custom-built" in that the purchaser specifies their desired combinations of engine/transmission/rears/suspension, cab and interior appointments from a menu offered by the manufacturer.

Unfortunaltely, unlike the "electronic explosion", they're ain't no "free lunch" in the trucking business ! The amount of energy it takes to drive a given GVW up a specified grade is known. Likewise the "end to end efficiency" of the various engine/transmission/rear drives. Even the diameter/width of the tires figures into these equations. And, most importantly, weight. Every pound of "tare weight" not only detracts from the truck/trailer payload but increases fuel burn.

All of these are Newtonian absolutes. Can't be by-passed, ignored, or legislated out of existence. It takes one horsepower to lift 660 lbs (reckoned in a 1-G field) 1 ft in one second. Discovering a way to "bypass" Newtonian physics we all live with daily would make the discoverer extremely rich - or dead - in short order. >Mech