Wanted: Fleet with a Marketer's Eye and a Good Sense of Humor

Vehicle aerodynamics is one of many factors that impact fuel economy. At highway speeds, as much as 65 percent of the fuel a car uses goes to overcoming air resistance. Reducing aerodynamic drag has become an important focus for long-haul trucks, including efforts by Peterbilt and EPA Smartway.

What opportunities are there on the passenger vehicle side?

In this month’s Wired magazine, hypermiler Darin Cosgrove demonstrates a 15 percent improvement in MPG from his homemade vehicle boat tail. His prototype is not the prettiest thing ever, as Darin readily admits (you can see a photo of it here). But he claims the MPG savings are real, which got me thinking. This would be a perfect fit for a small fleet that wanted to make a statement and get noticed.

Let’s assume that we have a fleet of 100 vehicles. The average miles traveled per vehicle is 22,000 with a 22 MPG – fairly typical numbers—and the vehicles only travel half of their miles at high enough speeds to make the 15% improvement. That fleet could save $19,000 a year.

What’s the cost? Darin’s inputs are duct tape, cardboard, an aluminum frame and his time. Any version for professional use would need to be made of sturdier materials, but it might still be cheap enough for a year or less payback.

The benefits are three fold: cost savings over the lifetime use of the product, avoided greenhouse gas emissions, and probably a lot of free media exposure.

The vehicles would be so unique that they’d be certainly noticed, which is a goal of many fleets (think Geek Squad). Plus, the fleet would be demonstrating for all to see another way to reduce emissions. It seems like a good deal to me for an intrepid fleet willing to take a chance. Any takers?

For more ideas on how to lower costs and emissions from your fleet, visit edf.org/greenfleet.

Sign up to follow the Innovation Exchange blog via email or RSS.