The recent insta­bil­ity of the global econ­omy has affected us on many lev­els. Indus­tries that were once boom­ing were no longer and unem­ploy­ment was at record high lev­els. Oil, a major com­mod­ity in the mar­ket­place, became a con­cern as fluc­tu­a­tions in the bar­rel cap­ti­vated the world’s atten­tion. The need for alter­na­tive vehi­cle tech­nolo­gies became preva­lent, and although mass pro­duc­tion and imple­men­ta­tion are within reach, finan­cial bar­ri­ers con­tinue to keep man­u­fac­tur­ers and con­sumers at bay. Until these alter­na­tive vehi­cles are read­ily avail­able and are finan­cially attain­able by the aver­age con­sumer, fleet man­agers and indi­vid­ual dri­vers alike must look at dri­ver behav­ior as a key com­po­nent to help min­i­mize asso­ci­ated costs.  

The Energy Infor­ma­tion Admin­is­tra­tion projects an aver­age increase in gaso­line prices from $2.35 per gal­lon in 2009 to $2.84 in 2010.¹ In order to reduce fuel costs, increase miles per gal­lon, and have the added ben­e­fit of slow­ing down envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, appro­pri­ate dri­ver behav­ior train­ing is nec­es­sary. The EPA reports that dri­ver behav­ior alone can impact as much as 33% of a vehicle’s fuel econ­omy², and there are sev­eral sim­ple things that dri­vers can do to help mit­i­gate these factors.

• Reduce idling time: Idling a vehi­cle not only con­sumes excess fuel and emits unnec­es­sary car­bon diox­ide, but rep­re­sents one of the poor­est, yet man­age­able, dri­ver behaviors.
• Plan ahead: Pre-trip plan­ning is ben­e­fi­cial as shorter, more effi­cient routes uti­lize less gas and there­fore reduce car­bon output.
• Clean out unnec­es­sary items: Reduc­ing weight in a vehi­cle has a mea­sur­able impact on fuel economy.

In com­bi­na­tion, these small changes can add up to sub­stan­tial sav­ings for an organization.

Fleet man­agers are down­siz­ing, shift­ing toward more eco­nom­i­cal vehi­cle selec­tors, imple­ment­ing dri­ver behav­ior courses, and using telem­at­ics devices to help alle­vi­ate over­all spend. How­ever, costs can be uncer­tain and prices could shift sig­nif­i­cantly in the near future. Indi­vid­u­als are rarely mind­ful of their bad dri­ving behav­iors unless they expe­ri­ence a dra­matic con­di­tion. Take for exam­ple, when fuel reached $4.50. Con­sumer per­spec­tive changed rapidly and the mar­ket demand for large/intermediate SUVs and trucks dropped sub­stan­tially. There was increased con­sumer inter­est in fuel effi­cient and hybrid vehicles.

Fast for­ward to cur­rent mar­ket con­di­tions: the econ­omy seems to be improv­ing; the dol­lar con­tin­ues to strengthen; oil has sta­bi­lized in com­par­i­son to the past cou­ple years; vehi­cle sales are mak­ing their way back to his­tor­i­cal lev­els; many hybrid vehi­cles are hit­ting the mar­ket; and cur­rent leg­is­la­tion is aimed directly at fleet per­for­mance and the effects of car­bon. How­ever, ask your­self one ques­tion “Has my dri­ver behav­ior changed from the sum­mer of 2008 to now?” I am cer­tain it has. Why? Peo­ple do not make dra­matic deci­sions or imple­ment behav­iors until it is absolutely nec­es­sary. Such was the case when fuel prices hit $4.50, the mar­ket was crum­bling, jobs were being cut at dev­as­tat­ing rates, vehi­cle man­u­fac­tur­ers were not pro­duc­ing effi­cient qual­ity prod­ucts, and the mon­e­tary sys­tem was in cri­sis. Every­one seemed to be more con­ser­v­a­tive dur­ing this time, even down to their dri­ving habits. This is a nat­ural reac­tion and unfor­tu­nately it may take sev­eral repet­i­tive events for us to real­ize that “if it hap­pened once it can hap­pen again.” Dri­ver behav­ior train­ing should be imple­mented and con­tin­u­ously rein­forced in order to not only min­i­mize costs but secure a “greener” future.   

¹ http://www.eia.doe.gov/steo

² http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/why_differ_detailed.shtml

About the Author

Mark Donahue
As a Client Consultant at Donlen, Mark Donahue uses his background in statistical analysis to understand and communicate market trends and fleet behavior to customers. Mark helps identify cost saving opportunities, appropriate vehicle selection, cycling parameters, policy implementation, and trending behaviors for Donlen’s Strategic Consulting customers. Mark earned his Master’s of Economics Degree from Eastern Illinois University, with a focus on Environmental Economics.

Many of today’s pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor fleets are migrat­ing to hybrid vehi­cles for a very impor­tant rea­son: bet­ter fuel econ­omy equals cost sav­ings and car­bon reduc­tion. With invoice costs and retail demand of hybrid vehi­cles becom­ing more com­pet­i­tive with their gaso­line coun­ter­parts, hybrids are a viable option for a fleet’s selec­tor list. Keep in mind it is not just the bat­tery that equates to the higher MPG; rather the abil­ity to cou­ple an Atkin­son cycle engine with elec­tric power the main­stay of today’s hybrid vehicles.

The Atkin­son cycle engine is not a new tech­nol­ogy; it was invented in 1882 by James
Atkin­son to bypass patents cov­er­ing the exist­ing tra­di­tional 4-stroke Otto cycle engine.
An Atkin­son engine’s effi­ciency advan­tage could be up to 14% more than that of an Otto engine. So why haven’t we seen Atkin­son cycle engines uti­lized in vehi­cles prior to the hybrid? Power. Because a smaller por­tion of the com­pres­sion stroke is used to com­press the air-fuel mix­ture, an Atkin­son engine does not take in as much air as a sim­i­larly sized Otto engine. Cou­pled with an elec­tric motor how­ever, this power gap is closed. Not only is effi­ciency improved by the elec­tric motor, but by the uti­liza­tion of a more effi­cient com­bus­tion engine as well.

Some vehi­cles that cur­rently uti­lize Atkin­son engines include:

• Ford Escape / Mer­cury Mariner Hybrids
• Ford Fusion / Mer­cury Milan Hybrids
• Toy­ota Camry Hybrid
• Toy­ota Prius
• Chevy Tahoe Hybrid
• Lexus RX 450h Hybrid
• Lexus HS 250h Hybrid
• Mer­cedes ML450 Hybrid  
• Mer­cedes S400 Blue Hybrid

So the next time you climb into a hybrid and step on the gas pedal, remem­ber this: it’s not just elec­tric motors and bat­ter­ies that are con­tribut­ing to your MPG, but a 130-year-old inven­tion that has finally come to light.

About the Author

Brad Jacobs
As a client consultant at Donlen, Brad Jacobs partners with clients to identify long-term cost savings and policy opportunities. Brad has been a key contributor to the development and implementation of several Donlen initiatives, including: Donlen Dashboard™, Scorecarding and Benchmarking, Donlen GreenKey™, and Donlen Telematics®. Prior to joining Donlen, Brad held several management positions with Enterprise, focusing on fleet operations and relationship management. Brad is a graduate of the University of Missouri and holds a bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Recently the DOE’s Energy Infor­ma­tion Admin­is­tra­tion released its Short Term Energy Out­look, in which they pre­dicted the price of gas to rise to $3.00 dur­ing the upcom­ing sum­mer months. While $3.00 isn’t far from the cur­rent aver­age price of $2.66 nor as high as the prices seen dur­ing the sum­mer of 2008, it can still make a sig­nif­i­cant impact on a fleet’s over­all fuel spend. For fleets that have already right-sized their vehi­cles, mon­i­tor­ing the fleet’s fuel effi­ciency is one of the most pow­er­ful ways to con­trol fuel spend.

For instance, an aver­age fleet sedan has an Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) com­bined city/highway fuel econ­omy rat­ing of 24 miles per gal­lon (MPG). Ana­lyz­ing data from the Donlen Mas­ter­Card® fuel card pro­gram an aver­age fleet dri­ver can range between 19 – 34 MPG. The dri­ver that achieves fuel effi­ciency greater than the EPA rat­ing is uti­liz­ing the vehi­cle in an effi­cient man­ner and reduc­ing fuel costs. Unfor­tu­nately, the dri­ver with rat­ings below the EPA fuel econ­omy rat­ing are col­lec­tively increas­ing fuel spend for the fleet. This means that a dri­ver who dri­ves 25,000 miles a year in an aver­age fleet sedan with fuel effi­ciency in the lower range of econ­omy will spend on aver­age $2,000 more per year than a vehi­cle whose dri­ver oper­ates more efficiently.

Even more dras­tic is the range of effi­ciency for a hybrid vehi­cle. Let’s look at a Prius as an exam­ple. The EPA lists the 2010 Toy­ota Prius at a com­bined city/highway rat­ing of 50 miles per gal­lon. An aver­age fleet dri­ver in a 2010 Prius can range between 40 MPG to more than 61 MPG. That vari­ance in effi­ciency can cost you an extra $700 per vehicle.

So what is the best way to man­age fuel spend? Edu­cat­ing and train­ing fleet dri­vers on the most effi­cient way to oper­ate their vehi­cles, and show­ing them their impact on the over­all poten­tial sav­ings when they do, may be the most pow­er­ful way to help you con­trol
fuel expenses.

**All cal­cu­la­tions based on annual mileage of 25,000 and fuel price of $3.00. All sav­ings are pre­sented as annual sav­ings. All fuel econ­omy data from http://www.fueleconomy.gov/ and actual fuel effi­ciency from Donlen Fuel Data

The Donlen Cor­po­rate Fleet Fuel Mas­ter­Card® Card is issued by Regions Bank pur­suant to a license by Mas­ter­Card® Inter­na­tional Incor­po­rated. Mas­ter­Card and the Mas­ter­Card Brand Mark are reg­is­tered trade­marks of Mas­ter­Card Inter­na­tional Incorporated.

About the Author

Chelsea Mathis
Chelsea Mathis is the Environmental Analyst at Donlen Corporation. In this role, Ms. Mathis assists companies in developing and establishing Green policies within their fleets. In addition, through the strategic consulting services scorecard process, Ms. Mathis provides assistance to clients in several facets including vehicle selection and researching/monitoring automotive trends impacting fleet operations. Further, she was an integral contributor to the launch of Donlen's scorecard process. Ms. Mathis is a graduate of Augustana College with a Bachelor's of Business Administration degree focusing on marketing management and finance.

As we kick off a new year, there is lit­tle doubt the econ­omy and vehi­cle emis­sions will con­tinue to be a major focus in 2010. Over the last 5–10 years the “green” ini­tia­tive has grown from a highly debated con­cept to an inte­gral part of today’s fleet strat­egy, influ­enced by high 2008 fuel prices and the 2009 credit cri­sis that drove the econ­omy downward. 

While a great num­ber of com­mer­cial fleets have taken advan­tage of new tech­nolo­gies and more fuel-efficient vehi­cles to lower emis­sions and oper­at­ing costs, many have been forced to delay planned replace­ments for a num­ber of inter­nal and exter­nal reasons. While the exten­sion of a vehicle’s ser­vice term may have some short term cash flow appeal, the real­ity is that the longer term effects of increased main­te­nance expenses and down­time tend to erode any per­ceived savings. While this strat­egy has long been debated, fuel effi­ciency improve­ments can clearly tip the scales.

In many cases it’s as sim­ple as replac­ing your old vehi­cle with the more fuel effi­cient 2010 model. Regardless if you plan to right-size your new vehi­cle selec­tion to a smaller, more fuel-efficient vehi­cle or stick with the same vehi­cle, real­iz­ing a 2–3 mile-per-gallon improve­ment can quickly trans­late into 8–10% sav­ings in your fuel expense. As tech­nol­ogy and the Cor­po­rate Aver­age Fuel Econ­omy (CAFE) stan­dards con­tinue to rise over the next sev­eral years, hold­ing on to older vehi­cles will result in increased fuel spend com­pared to a newer more effi­cient model.

Given today’s econ­omy and the increas­ing need for com­pa­nies to reduce emis­sions and lower oper­at­ing costs, it is vital that tra­di­tional con­cepts of replac­ing vehi­cles on a set term of months and/or miles be con­stantly chal­lenged through dynamic vehi­cle life­cy­cle and emis­sions modeling. 

Have you explored your fleet lately and asked, “what if?…”

About the Author

Daniel Hannan
Senior Vice President, Strategic Consulting Services and Environmental Solutions - Donlen Corporation Dan Hannan is the Senior Vice President of Strategic Consulting and Environmental Solutions at Donlen Corporation. Mr. Hannan has previously served as the company's Senior Vice President of Information Technology and Quality, as well as Remarketing Services Manager. Prior to joining Donlen six years ago, Mr. Hannan held management positions with General Electric, focusing on fleet operations, quality and customer relationship management. Mr. Hannan is a graduate of Minnesota State University-Mankato with a Bachelor's of Business Administration degree in marketing and management, and is a six-sigma black belt.