Indianapolis, Ind. – While commercial truck buyers are being presented with more technologies and fuels for vehicles than ever before, one option took the lion’s share of the attention at the Green Truck Summit Tuesday, the kickoff event of the NTEA’s Work Truck Show 2014.
Natural gas, either compressed or liquefied, has pickup up users in recent years, but experts expect it to boom (pardon the pun) in popularity this year.
Last year, 60.9% of the alternative fuel commercial vehicles put into service burned some form of natural gas, says Patrick Davis, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s office of vehicle technologies. Davis spoke via a video linkup as bad weather in Washington prevented him from getting to Indianapolis for the show.
“There’s good news on the way,” Davis says. “(There are) choices in the market, choices not only in vehicles buy fuels and other technologies.”
Stephe Yborra, director of market development for the NGVAmerica trade group, credits a new 8.9L engine from Cummins Westport for almost all of that increase. Suitable for commercial vehicles ranging from dump trucks to delivery trucks, Yborra says more than half of the garbage trucks ordered last year featured the engine.
He adds that the joint venture between diesel specialist Cummins Inc. and natural gas specialist Westport Innovations, have launched an 11.9L natural gas engine that should be popular with even bigger vehicles this year.
“That really pushes into the heavy duty world,” Yborra says. “I think we’re going to see a really good reception of that engine in 2014.”
Natural gas users at the conference praised the fuel for being inexpensive, predictable, and readily available. Still, it’s not perfect for all uses. High engine costs, limited vehicle ranges, and the need for new services facilities means many companies are offering alternatives.
Some companies have had successes with electrified vehicles. Dave Meisel, senior director of Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s transportation and aviation services, said electric vehicles offered more benefits to the utility than did natural gas.
While batteries are heavy and expensive, he says they offer significant benefits for utilities such as silent operations. In cities where utilities were limited to daylight hours because of noise concerns, Meisel said PG&E was able to double the available work day for fleets running electric trucks.
“We all recognize the value of cost per mile driven, but that kind of doubling of the work day doesn’t show up on any cost analysis,” Meisel says. “We need to be smart enough to realize the full benefits of these technologies and pass along those benefits in our cost models.”
The Work Truck Show 2014 continues through Thursday. For updates, return to this site or follow @OnlineTMV on Twitter.
Source: DOE, NGVAmerica, PG&E