etruck.com.au

Here in Australia we have seen a series of wonder cures coming on sale to solve the problem of high diesel prices and as they crash and burn, another lot of wonder solutions come up with enthusiastic claims to cut fuel costs dramatically.

I am not trying to be disparaging about this particular technology on the Big Lorry Blog and this one is probably well designed and works quite well. Many others have been down this road before and proved to be more expensive than originally thought or not as effective as claimed and, quite often create more problems than they solve.

Some big name companies and well-respected fleet managers have been down the dual fuel diesel/lpg route only to abandon the project after pouring a lot of money into it. Others have tried adding hydrogen to the inlet airflow with mixed results.

The answer is, there are no easy solutions, no silver bullet, every new technology has its drawbacks and there is a penalty to using anything other than diesel in a diesel engine. The ones which work the best tend to be the most expensive and make the least extravagant claims about their product.

Just wait until the next masive fuel price hike and another batch of snake oil salesmen will be emerging from the shadows promising to save your trucking business.