Schneider testing out apu's

The resale value of the truck won't offset the added cost to a new truck being purchased with a new APU installed. They'll be luck if they can recoup 25% of the cost of the unit. They still be losing money. I thinkn if they were to install them, I think we'd be seeing them keeping trucks a few years longer. I honestly dont see how they would keep them running. Their mechanics are struggling enough to keep the fleet running down the road

But can you imagine the commission of the salesman that lands that account?!

"Hey, Boss! I just landed Schneider. I'm retired"

 

if big pumpkin is TESTING technology known for 30 years to sip 2 gallons of fuel and keep engines warm, drivers happy, batteries fed and make hot water if necessary and equipped.... then pumpkin is a little bit late past it's bedtime at midnight I would think. /snarky

 

Yes, our upper management definitely needs to be given a snack and sent to bed while the grownups get the job done.

This is our 2nd (at least) test. Stu (guy on the left) has been arguing for them for years, but Stu is an acolyte of Wayne Lubner so he actually cares about drivers. Problem is that the shops are kept on a shoestring in terms of personnel, drivers dont maintain them (have to check the oil every now and again), and they dont add much to resale as a majority of the trucks are sold to central/south America and Africa.

 

You wont believe where Pumpkin was back in the 80's Or even further back.

Ive some stories. I'll share one.

A friend of mine was a little bit of a wanderer, a mountain man. A good man. I gave him a taste of trucking one week in our rig on a short load. He liked it. Joined.. yep Pumpkin. Figures he's well on his way. What stories. Including digging entire 18 wheeler out from a 50 foot drift in a winter blizzard that did not quit for a week near home.

Anyhow.

Pumpkin gave him a hard time over a very minor conflict appointments with a General Mills Cereal Account near Harrisburg roughly as the crow flies. It's such a common conflict with angry dispatcher. he quit.

A few days later his cabover engine tractor suffered a complete and total frame failure on the highway coming out of PA. It would over turn and completely destroy itself down to the engine block and frame rails possibly killing the man in it.

You wonder about those things in life. When the good lord sees fit to move you along to something else prior to a lethal problem when you are not yet done doing what you aint done yet in life....

Yea I'll pick on the pumpkin. But Im also very catholic when it comes to picking on companies that are so big, over bilt with 15000 trucks crying for attention and hand holding unable to do anything at the high corporate level anytime soon. He he he.

 

Now, now, our high corporate level does lots of things. Just not necessarily the things I want them to do. Quite often things that make me ask "are those guys high up the organizational chart or just high?"

 

Sni profits would double if they trimmed the fat in GB and held CS accountable.

 

I can't see that ever happening as long as lofgren's in charge

 

Sure you can idle.....as long as you aren't in Pennsylvania or a Walmart parking lot. And I'm sure there are plenty of other places that won't let you idle.

My opinion is that diesel APUs are the way to go.