Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/599511
66 commercial carrier journal | november 2015 O ne of the more interest- ing sessions at this year's Technology and Mainte- nance Council fall meeting in Orlando, Fla., was dedicated to the growing popularity of 6x2 drive axles in Class 8 long-haul applications. The session was chaired by Mike Roeth, executive director of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency, which takes the lion's share of the credit for bringing the 6x2 axle concept to the forefront of trucking today. "This is a spec that's been around for decades," Roeth says. "But it's something not a lot of people remembered." In 2009, Roeth and NACFE were working on fuel economy specifications with Con-way Truckload and other fleets when the 6x2 concept turned up during the discussions. The initial data on 6x2 axle perfor- mance was intriguing, Roeth recalls, because although there were distinctive disadvantages with the spec – most no- tably, a risk of getting the truck stuck in almost laughably embarrassing circum- stances – the benefits were difficult to ignore: fuel economy increases of up to 5 percent in some applications, coupled with a 400-pound vehicle weight reduc- tion. "Still," Roeth remembers, "the more we looked at it, the more we felt like we'd uncovered a new and very promis- ing opportunity for many fuel-conscious North American fleets." The resulting NACFE report on 6x2 axles released in early 2014 "kind of blew the roof off," Roeth says. "That session at TMC this year kind of highlights that." After presenting information from various fleets involved in the report – including Con-way, Ryder, C.R. England, Frito-Lay, Werner Enterprises, Bison Transport, UPS and Schneider Na- tional – Roeth opened the floor to TMC attendees for a question-and-answer session. He was astounded when fleet manager after fleet manager stepped up to the microphone to praise the 6x2 concept and detail how they were work- ing around various limitations with the spec. "When we put out our report in 2014, we noted that current 6x2 market While fleets admit some drawbacks with 6x2 drive axles, the benefits are worth it By Jack RoBeRts