Daimler just announced that on its new Freightliner Cascadia with Detroit engines fleets will be able to make changes to engine parameters over the air. This will include the ability to change things like idle shutdown, road speed, cruise speed.
Our Confidence Report on Electronic Engine Parameters found that fleets that are already managing their electronic engine parameters can see fuel economy gains of around 0.5 mpg from optimizing the parameters, but gains can be even higher if the fleet employs drivers with poor driving habits. Fleets that previously have not used parameters to optimize for fuel economy—often due to confusion surrounding terminology—can see fuel economy improvements in the 5-8% range.
And while optimizing engine parameters is worth the effort the complexity of doing so prevents some fleets from doing it.
There are more than 100 different parameters that fall into six categories: vehicle speed limits, vehicle configuration information, engine speed limits, idle reduction, driver rewards and miscellaneous MPG-related.
In announcing the change, Daimler said it was giving fleets control so they could be as productive as possible. They’ve also eliminated one of the challenges to changing the parameters and that is having to physically connect to the truck to make the change.
Optimizing engine parameters for fuel efficiency makes sense, being able to do it without having to “plug in” makes it easier than ever for a fleet to dial in the settings that work best for them.
About the Author
Michael Roeth
Executive Director
Michael Roeth is the executive director of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency. He serves on the second National Academy of Sciences Committee on Technologies and Approaches for Reducing the Fuel Consumption of Medium and Heavy-Duty Vehicles and has held various positions with Navistar and Behr/Cummins.