Think 10 miles per gallon, and your mind may harken back to muscle cars along the line of the General Lee from the dukes of Hazzard. Apply that figure to a semi-truck, though, and we’re talking actual fuel-efficiency gains. That’s what the four-year-old SuperTruck program shot for, and two of its four teams have already hit that goal.
The SuperTruck program launched in 2010 with four teams led by Cummins, Daimler, Navistar and Volvo, and the goal of the US Department of Energy-funded program was to raise fuel efficiency for Class 8 tractor-trailer trucks by 50 per cent from the typical six miles-per-gallon range.