What, do you mean drivers, is that what you mean by truckers? The parties to be regulated were involved in the regulation process, and they are in agreement with the outcome. They have stated the new technology required will pay for itself in fuel saving over a period of 18 - 24 months. How many years usage can someone get out of a well maintained tractor trailer? Looks like to me they are looking at a substantial savings over the life of the truck.
How would you go about setting an industry pollution standard, as opposed to the way this one was done?
yeah.. drivers and owner-operators...
the CEO of fed-ex knows exactly nothing about trucks... he's a numbers and ideas kinda guy, as CEO's tend to be.... real truckers know everything about their truck and what it takes to operate it.
i will guarantee you that whatever technology the put on these trucks to meet the CAFE standards will need maintenance and/or repair during this 18-24 month period.... how much that costs will depend upon the specific application... that is a very hard cost to assign when we try to figure out total cost, as it is dependent on a multitude of variables
as for the lifespan of a tractor.. well, the chassis can last 40 years or so...a well maintained powerplant will last out to about a million miles or so ( it will cost about 5 times the value of the motor , in maintenance and repairs, to get it to last that long).. a well maintained power train ( transmission, brownie box, driveline, rear ends) will last out to about 300-500k miles before a rebuild is in the cards... clutches can go anywhere between 6 months and 10 years( depending on driving habits of the operator).. tires can last out to 200k, but that is pretty rare anymore... most truck will go through 1.5 sets of tires per year (about $7-$8k per year).
by my calculations ( very simple ones, admittedly) i'm seeing about $19,000 in fuel savings per year under these new standards ( average miles driven / mpg X average diesel prices)... so it seem to me the manufacturers are advertising that the cost of the new standards will be between $29,000 and $38,000 bucks ( using their stated 18 -24 month recoup window).... if my figures are in the ballpark, that's a mighty hefty price to pay , considering new trucks run $80-$100 grand on average.
the big firms ( Con-way, Yellow/Roadway, Fed Ex, Coca-cola) will pay substantially less for their trucks ( they buy or lease in volume), so their markup will be substantially less than the average owner operator sees... they might even be privy to subsidies and incentives to update their fleets ( which is usually the case when new standards roll down the pike)
the big boys won't be hurt too bad by this, but the little guys, once again, will foot the bill in it's entirety.