Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/85450
Tridako's PowerCube HC5128 model, marketed through the Caterpillar network, boasts 24,000 BTUs for cool- ing. and the price of fuel is high. Wyandt, who works closely with Pennsylvania-based Smith Transport, says using the fleet's annual idling aver- age of more than 2,000 hours per truck results in saving $850 per month per truck. "That's a return on invest- ment in 11 to 13 months," Wyandt says. Any good APU dealer can help you figure a return on investment based on your idling habits, truck/sleeper size, your normal freight lanes and accessory power needs. With a diesel-powered unit, you will need to know the per-hour operating cost. If an APU burns 0.2 gallons of diesel per hour and the average fuel use to idle is 1 gallon per hour, you have net fuel savings of 0.8 gallons per hour. Multiply that by the number of hours you idle (by day, month or year) times the price of diesel fuel to get your overall savings. Some diesel APUs use fuel at different rates for heat- ing and cooling. For instance, Thermo King's diesel- powered TriPac burns an average of 0.2 gallons of fuel per hour to cool the cab, but the fuel-powered heater, independent of the APU's engine, burns only 0.06 gal- lons per hour. "What Thermo King chose to do back in 2005 when we were designing the system was to decouple the heat from the diesel engine of the APU," Barbaros says. The cost saving that's harder to quantify but still sub- stantial is engine wear. "Just look at the cost of an engine overhaul today. It's about $18,000 to $20,000," says Gary Parks, owner of Parks Industries, which produces the HP2000, a heat-pump-centered APU. "Fuel is a big sav- ings, but reducing engine wear is even bigger." David Hancock, CEO of Hodyon, maker of Dynasys APU, concurs. "If you can do less maintenance on the truck engine because you are not running it an extra 8 to 10 hours a day, then your truck engine is going to last longer, therefore your truck is going to last longer. One of our customers increased his trade cycle from three years to three and half years after buying APUs. That's when you start talking big bucks." October 2012 | Overdrive | 31 Text INFO to 50298 or visit ovdinfo.com Text INFO to 50298 or visit ovdinfo.com