To 2014....and BEYOND!!!!

If only they would use common sense. But thats to much to ask for from them.

 

I talked to an IRS worker one day...

said "That would be common sense" to the worker.

She came back....

" I don't have to use common sense, I work for the government."

I had to hang up I was laughing and pissed so much at the same time.

 

Yep. That would be a real incentive. And when it comes down to it, if the government restricts gliders with pre-emission engines it will be primarily because of the loss of FET. I figure that once they get up to speed, they will do away with the avoidance of FET when doing a glider. That is more of an incentive to them than clean air anyway. At that point, glider sales will diminish somewhat.

 

If what you are running now works great then I would hold onto it. Diesel trucks are never going to go the way of the dodo bird or at least not with our current technology. We will just see the Natural Gas engines move into the straight trucks, local trucks, some regional after the infrastructure has been built up. As fuel prices continue to climb you will see a more and more move over to LNG as it is dirt cheap as a commodity thanks to the glut of supply from Frac drilling.

It may make sense for the trucks that haul lays potato chips to go LNG as the bags are 3/4 filled with air and that trailer cubes out first long before it gets close to its GVW limit. However for heavy hauls diesel will still be the better choice.

I think over the next few years it will be a standard option to order your truck with a diesel or LNG engine and beyond that not much will change other than a new aisle at the truck stop.

 

That would be nice but I bet it will go the other way. The taxes will stay the same but they will add on an emission tax on any engine/truck that is not hitting certain thresholds. It would be part of your safety. They use a sensor to test your exhaust and if its NOx and SOx and CO2 levels are whatever then please send a cheque for x number of dollars to your friendly elected official.

It would only be nice if they subjected the rest of the vehicles to the road with the same standards (even current ones). I see way more beaters of cars pumping out smoke and other crap than trucks. It always makes the news with the DOT officials set up a inspection in the middle of town. They go to town on all the city trucks, the highway ones that have to be maintained due regular enforcement never have a problem but you see a hell of a lot of delivery trucks parked on the side of the road until they go put new tires or what not on them.

 

That is always a possibility to. The Government can do just about anything. Only problem is, how many it affects and who they are. Most here probably focus on regular road trucks in this topic. That is only a portion of it. There are one heck of a lot of older trucks still being used, and a far and away older than anything being mentioned here. All it takes is running around a lot of two lanes during harvest season in the midwest to see that something even as early at 1990 is virtually a new truck compared to a lot of what it hauling grain to town. Something like you mention, Calspring, could indeed happen, but it would not go over quite as easily as one would think. Most government folks really do not want to incur the wrath of a bunch of ticked off farmers. It is easy to pull this kind of stuff off in a place like California, where there is farming, but it accounts for but a small portion of what goes on locally there in the big picture. But for all the produce and such grown there, it is but a trickle compared to the bread basket states of the midwest.

This is why I am somewhat confident that most, if not all, trucks operating will be just grandfathered in. New gliders and such will just get hit with the FET like any other new truck, or be EPA regulated so that there is a backward limit on the year of engine you can put in. Like I stated before, there has been no move on the local or national level to tax or outlaw previous year other vehicles. Heavy diesel trucks that have no emissions will become fewer and fewer as time goes on and attrition will weed them out of the mix. You will one day find them only in classic truck shows or parades.

But you could be correct. Anything could happen. We'll just have to see. Until then, I will just keep on using what I have and not worry one wit about it. Those that live in constant fear of what the government might do would be better advised to run only the latest technology trucks. Those of us that have our paranoia gland in check, will run what we have now.

 

If they were to do something like calspring mentioned, they would probably give the farmers a waiver, part of their subsidy.

 

Its all a bunch for junk... Lets just stop and think about this all for a fast second. People say LNG would be great, because of price blah blah blah... You know just as well as I do they will start to tax the #### out of it. With in 2 or 3 years of wide spread LNG use or what ever fuel they want to run with they will all be with in a couple cents of each other. Lets say by 2020 half the trucks on the road are running on LNG. I would put money on it that diesel fuel and LNG are with in $.05 of each other if not closer. Just saying they will be getting there money no matter what we do...

We are all bent over a barrel, that is life...

 

I was looking at a LNG Pete the other day and talking to the driver. He said the power was just like a diesel BUT it only got 3.4 mpgs!! Right now the cost of LNG is slighty less than half the price of diesel and natural gas prices are down now. I don't see much of any kind of savings running a LNG truck. When you factor in the cost ($250,000) in buying a LNG truck there is no financial benefit. Plus he still had to buy diesel and def.