Revolutionizing diesel combustion — Net-Zero Carbon

• Reduce fuel consumption by 10% to 30%, depending on the road cycle and the loads.
• Lower emissions of harmful nitrogen oxides by about 20%.
• Decrease particulate matter emissions by 30% to 50%.
• Improve horsepower by 5% to 8%. 
• Reduce maintenance costs because of the lower soot content in the engine.
• Increase uptime due to fewer maintenance needs.

“This is the first time chemistry meets mechanical engineering,” Schickler said.

Cole said, “When everyone’s thinking about the future of trucking and how we’re going to do it in a zero-emissions way, people forget the long tail. People forget we have millions of these on the road in America today, and they’re going to go on and live for decades in other countries when they’re done working here. And we’ve got to have a solution in place that helps cut emissions now.” 

Read: The 2nd leg of the emissions-reduction journey — Net-Zero Carbon

Cost savings and installation details

SPI has installed the SPIER system for single owner-operators and large operators alike. Schickler said the size of the fleet doesn’t matter.

Cole said, “When you give someone the option to say, ‘Yes, you can cut emissions now, but I will also give you a 20% fuel savings,’ how does that not sell?” 

The system costs $6,000, and the payback period is under a year, according to Schickler.

“If you have 100 vehicles, the potential savings within one year for long-haul is about $1 million, so it’s easily affordable,” Schickler said. This estimation assumes each truck travels an average of 120,000 miles annually.

The SPIER system doesn’t change any OEM components, and the installation process takes four to six hours. Schickler said it’s “an easy upfit on a truck.”

SPI can ship the kit to owner-operators to install themselves or companies can take kits to dealers for installation. The company is working with a major manufacturer to produce the kits and reaching out to OEMs about installing the SPIER systems.

“I just got sick of diesel [vehicles] being hurt and hurting the environment at the same time,” Schickler said.

View all of FreightWaves’ Net-Zero Carbon episodes and sustainability stories.

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