Keep on truckin'? Long haulers yield to diesel prices

Because of short supply, the price of diesel has gone up more than twice as much as gasoline in the last year, reaching a U.S. all-time high this week of an average of $4.33 a gallon. With little hope of a near-term decline -- oil futures rose $2.17 to settle at a record $126.29 a barrel Friday -- the run-up is causing panic and prompting radical cultural and technological shifts in the struggling trucking industry.

Instead of obsessing over chrome trim or the latest cab amenities to ease life on the road, truck owners and operators who are fed up with getting 5 miles per gallon are delving into long-ignored subjects such as aerodynamics, cruising speeds and tire efficiency.

Engineers and manufacturers are furiously developing fuel-friendly technology. And commercial fleets are using high-tech software to calculate every aspect of their drivers' routes, down to where they should fill up and where they should stop for the night.

Bill Rethwisch, an independent long-haul trucker, recently traded in his Peterbilt 379 for a new Kenworth T660 rig. Although he prefers the traditional looks of the Peterbilt, with its boxy hood, flat, chromed grille and towering exhaust pipes, he knows it was aerodynamically flawed.

The $119,000 Kenworth, marketed as the company's most aerodynamic truck ever, has a streamlined wedge shape and eliminates projections such as the smokestacks. The result, Rethwisch said, is an increase from 4.5 mpg in the Peterbilt to the Kenworth's 6.5 mpg, which saves him upward of $2,000 a month at the pump.

"The Peterbilt is the classiest and coolest-looking truck around," said Rethwisch, who hauls dairy products from Wisconsin to California and goes home loaded with produce. "But cool only goes so far when fuel prices are so high."

The shift is not unlike what's happening with passenger cars -- drivers are abandoning gas-thirsty SUVs and pickups in favor of zippy subcompacts. But with U.S. trucks burning upward of 20 billion gallons of diesel a year and trucking industry bankruptcies soaring, shifting to more efficient vehicles can be a matter of business survival.

"There has long been an aversion to new technology and new approaches in heavy trucking," said Peter Nesvold, a transportation analyst at Bear Stearns. "But as costs of fuel rise higher, that's changing."