It's a Team's Life
Playing with fuel costs
Fuel is our number one expense and one we are diligent in our endeavors to keep down. In our Cascadia we immediately starting driving it like we owned her not like we stole her and we are impressed. Our DD13 has all ready shown us we have more than enough power coupled with the aerodynamics of the Cascadia to improve our fuel costs.
I find it rather amazing how improving only .5 MPG will lower our cost of fuel for the year:
All costs are figured at 140,000 miles a year and fuel at $4.00 a gallon
9 MPG $62,222.22
9.5 MPG $58,333.33 for a .5 savings of $3,274.85
10 MPG $56,000.00 for a .5 savings of $6,222.22 over getting 9 MPG
Lets jump ahead a bit to what 12 MPG and 13 MPG gallon
12 MPG 46,666.67
12.5 MPG $44,800.00 for a savings over 9 MPG of $17,422.00
13 MPG $43,076.92 for a savings over 9 MPG of $19,145.30
As we can see as our fuel mileage goes up our rate of return
slows.
Now my thoughts were lets see if
what happens when I add in fuel surcharge (FSC). Normally I do not break out
FSC from a load, but I thought this might be fun and it was.
Our FSC is figured at 9 MPG and I stuck with
my 140,000 miles for the year. My FSC is figured at .31.
9 MPG cost of fuel after FSC $18,222.22
10 MPG cost of fuel after FSC $12,600.00
11 MPG cost of fuel after FSC $7,509.09
12 MPG cost of fuel after FSC $3,266.67
13 MPG cost of fuel after FSC $-323.08
If we can get our Cascadia to average 13 MPG we will have arrived at the point where we are being paid to put fuel in our truck. As it is right now the Cascadia for each fill up the Cascadia is solidly in the 10.5 MPG gallon range and has shown us two 11 MPG. We figure our fuel mileage off of the odometer not the instant read out, as that appears to be a few tenths off. Right now we have the ONAN generator pulling fuel out of our main tanks, but next time we go home we will be added an auxiliary fuel tank. This does two things for us, first we have accurate figures on what kind of fuel mileage our DD13 is achieving and we are able to fill with off road fuel and not pay the highway taxes.
I am looking forward to having the auxiliary fuel tank and having the accurate numbers on our fuel usage. I could quickly see by my numbers that the better our fuel usage the more money stays in our pocket.
There are a couple ways this helps as our chances of getting a speeding ticket are nil to none which keeps us with a low CSA score and our stress level is very low as we do not often pass vehicles. Our average dispatch speed is 47 mph and as we keep the left door shut when and stop for very little we have no problem averaging making our delivery and pickup on time. We have increased our speed in this truck to a whooping 60 mph average and this seems to be what this truck and motor prefers.
Bob & Linda Caffee
Leased to: FedEx Custom Critical 

TeamCaffee

Saint Louis MO
Expediters 6 years been out here on the road 11 years
Expediting isn't just trucking, it's a lifestyle; 

Expediting isn't just a lifestyle, it's an adventure;

Expediting isn't just an adventure, it's a job;

Expediting isn't just a job, it's a business.