Quote:
Originally Posted by MazdaMatt
My family's bread and butter is trucking. My father owns a company, two uncles drive trucks, my brother and two cousins are mechanics.
Yes, it is fair to say that many truckers are big-block lovin, manly men.
However, i think the reason for lack of change is financially driven as you'd expect the reasons FOR change to be. With a sudden up-shot in deisel prices, many companies are struggling in this industry. You can't just change your fleet over to more efficient trucks. A new "typical" truck is like a hudred grand. Some technologically advanced engineering spectacular would cost much more. That buys a lot of gas and uses a lot of money that these companies just don't have right now.
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Most people seem to hate government intervention in any aspect of their lives.Today,in the US,EPA mileage figures on new cars are drawing much interest.Funny thing,those numbers wouldn't exist without "big government".Class-8 truck manufacturers have done what they can with their tractors,with no pressure from the EPA.They're kinda deadlocked now with mpg,because very little has been done with trailers.Just supposing,what would happen if the EPA had "voluntary" goals for 18-wheeler mpg,as associated to the truck/tractor combination,say,10-mpg? Perhaps there would be incentives for any company to step up to the plate.Something like the Program for New Generation Trucks(PNGT),like President Clinton tried to do with automobiles,which were supposed to go on sale last year,with 80-mpg.By the way,are the car makers going to return all those millions of taxpayer dollars they received to produce a car they never manufactured? Inquiring minds want to know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!