Did you know that coolant is just as important to your fleet as your oil

Did you know that coolant is just as important to your fleet as your oil?Coolants need to be monitored and tested because mechanical and/or chemical reactions can occur that hinder the performance of the coolant.Over time, coolant breaks down and becomes less effective.Failure to monitor the coolant may result in corrosion and/or sludge that can affect the proper functioning of the cooling system.If the cooling system is damaged, you risk overheating your engine and shutting down your business.
Fleet Equipment covers all the latest industry news and in-depth features related to trucks, tractors and trailers, including details on the latest equipment components.Fleet Equipment tracks industry equipment trends with a focus on helping fleets run the most efficient and efficient trucks on the road.Fleet Equipment’s detailed editorial focuses directly on equipment, making it an excellent resource for every fleet.Seasoned editors provide insights and solutions based on their years of experience in the freight industry.Get ready for your access to digital editions, contests, news and more today!
Fleet Equipment covers all the latest industry news and in-depth features related to trucks, tractors and trailers, including details on the latest equipment components.Fleet Equipment tracks industry equipment trends with a focus on helping fleets run the most efficient and efficient trucks on the road.Fleet Equipment’s detailed editorial focuses directly on equipment, making it an excellent resource for every fleet.Seasoned editors provide insights and solutions based on their years of experience in the freight industry.Get ready for your access to digital editions, contests, news and more today!
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As part of a pilot project, 2020 will be the first time fleets will begin receiving electric trucks.Since we are (somehow) past the midpoint of 2021, FE reached out to the fleet to find out how they experienced these trucks; how the trucks performed compared to expectations; and whether they would consider investing further in electrification, and other pressing issues.
In this article in this series, we interview Penske Truck Leasing, which has been testing several electric trucks in its fleet, including the Freightliner eCascadia and Hyliion 6X4HE Class 8 hybrid.
“We’ve had a lot of experience. It’s been fantastic,” said Paul Rosa, Penske Senior Vice President of Purchasing and Fleet Planning.“We knew we had to understand what the challenge was going to be in order to feel our successful, easy experience with new technology. It’s not going to be smooth sailing, so you have to find the problem.
“The big thing we had to do was put the trucks on all the different types of routes because you don’t want to be testing the same routes or the same types of routes all the time; you want to go out and take risks.”
Rosa said Penske tested routes with varying numbers of stops, heavier and lighter loads, and several other variations to test the vehicle’s capabilities and range.
“One of the cars could use only half the range and come back at 50 percent state of charge to see how fast that car is charging,” he said.”The applications are plentiful and we are constantly evaluating different applications as we offer more units to different customers, or the same units to new customers. It’s all on the board. We have to understand all the applications, or Learn as much as you can about today’s technology.
“So we’ve reached the maximum range it can do — for this example, we’ll just say it’s 150 miles — and we’ll have units going out 150 miles, some going out 130, some going 100, some going 80. Then we Switch and get them into different terrain, different areas, where there are higher hills, etc., the same range.”
“You’re always excited and hope that new technology will be better than what you have today. Right? So our expectation is that electric vehicles will outperform ICE [internal combustion engines],” Rosa replied.
“Even the prototype units, and then the next generation or the first pre-production units, still performed very, very well compared to the ICE, which exceeded our expectations,” detailed Rosa.”So I’m very happy with where we are in the overall evaluation project, from a power standpoint, from a driver comfort standpoint, from how quiet they are, how the trucks behave. These It’s more than we expected. We just want it to work under the applications it’s normally used for, if it’s a diesel unit or a gas unit and those are catered for out of the gate, then you get all these other benefits. I’m very happy with our current version of the device.”
Rosa went on to stress the importance of keeping drivers happy, and said electric trucks can make it happen.
“When you improve their driving environment, you retain drivers — whether it’s in the cab, their comfort, their health, all of that mixed up. These vehicles are smoother, easier, more Be quiet. I can go on and on about all the benefits that drivers have. So it’s really going to help drivers, and I think that’s very important.”
“You don’t have to work on the infrastructure until you know the trucks are going to be in use for a few months,” advises Penske’s Rosa. “We invested in infrastructure in 2018-19.”
Rosa said you never know how long it will take for these devices to arrive and be installed — look at the shortage of microchips that is happening today and its impact on manufacturing, for example.
“People also don’t realise what you have to go through in order to be ready to put in infrastructure. You have to work with the local municipality to get a permit. You have to work with the utility to assess the site to see if it has what you need electricity capacity. So there are a lot of things that need to be queued up to get the infrastructure going.”
The teams interviewed for this series are unanimous in their enthusiasm for continuing to invest in electric vehicles.Rosa described Penske as “all in.”
“We will do it,” he said.”We’re going to do this as quickly as possible, where it makes sense, when it makes sense, because that’s what we need to do as a company and what we want to do for the environment. That’s what we lease to us as well. what the customer of the vehicle wants.
“So we have to be ready. We have to get more locations ready for infrastructure. We have more and more vehicles. We have to have infrastructure to support them. At this point, we have no choice. We are racing , the game has started and the clock is moving fast. So we just have to move forward as quickly as possible. So nothing can stop us. We are ready.”