Heavy Duty Trucking, September 2018
That initial low emission Kenworth T680 was put into service on a 50 mile postal run from Santa Clarita California to Los Angeles International Airport operated by AJR a contract mail hauler based in Rancho Dominguez California According to AJR co owner Jack Khudikyan the carrier tested a KW day cab with the new CNG engine last year We had to see how the truck and engine performed how re fueling went and how are drivers worked with the truck he says Positive results led AJR to put in for a contract bid with the U S Postal Service to use 20 Kenworth T680s with the near zero engine When we won the contract we were helped with a grant from SoCalGas So it was a triple win says Khudikyan We received help from the grant to purchase near zero trucks we passed along some of the savings to the postal service and the environment became greener since we removed 20 of our older diesel trucks from operation AJR plans to add 70 more of the CNG trucks Khudkyan is analyzing which routes could work with refueling stations For the LAX run the fleet relies on a commercial CNG station near the airport Behind the cab a Worthington CNG fuel system and tanks with a diesel equivalency of 167 gallons gives the company a range of about 700 miles so they will only need to fuel up every two or three days In preparation of putting the 20 new T680s into service weve been rotating drivers into our current Kenworth CNG truck so everyone will hit the road running on re fueling Khudkyan says He says AJR will add CNG trucks where it makes sense noting that without counting grants the fleet has projected payback to be about 15 years The cost of CNG is about half that of diesel so there is a good ROI When you factor in that we plan to run 13 million miles a year to LAX with the 20 T680s alone the fuel savings are substantial As for figuring out which option might best power a given fleet ACT Research provides a free online calculator http www actresearch net actcalc AltFuelCalc php that helps measure power selection and vehicle cost fuel and performance and maintenance over a set time period or trade cycle for diesel and natural gas as well as hydrogen fuel cell and electric powertrains SEPTEMBER 2018 HDT 63 WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM
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