Vehicle Trends Perspective from the Propane Education & Research Council

Over the past few years, the Propane Education & Research Council (PERC) has focused heavily on getting vehicles in the marketplace that the propane industry can use. The council’s work has contributed to a variety of offerings, and the Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp. (FCCC) S2G bobtail and the Roush/Ford F-750 bobtail are just two of many examples, said the council’s COO, Tucker Perkins. “You also begin to see now the full suite of Ford and GM trucks and more light- and medium-duty service trucks and bobtails,” he noted. “You and I can think about the OEM [original equipment manufacturer] offerings, but also we’re seeing Ford pickup offerings from Blossman Services Inc., a whole suite of vehicles from ICOM, Isuzu models from Campbell-Parnell, and Greenkraft. We’re beginning to see a host of vehicles coming to market that propane companies could use. For 2017, what we’ll see is further refinement of some of our offerings in terms of not only the breadth of ICOM’s line and Blossman Services’ line, but just a continued refinement of FCCC and Ford and their technology.”

He added that the council continues to talk with additional OEMs about how propane offerings could benefit them. He mentioned Kenworth, Peterbilt, and Navistar as three companies he would like to see come out with propane products to expand the propane industry’s options of trucks and engines available to the marketplace.
He noted that the trucking industry is preparing for the on-board diagnostic (OBD) rules for medium-duty trucks that will take effect in 2018 per the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and in 2019 for EPA. The rule states that heavy-duty engines intended for use in a heavy-duty vehicle weighing more than 14,000 lb GVWR must be equipped with an on-board diagnostic (OBD) system capable of monitoring all emission-related engine systems or components during the life of the engine. Perkins explained that means the vehicle is “constantly monitoring and changing itself to have better emissions to be safer in terms of engine parameters.” He added that the average driver won’t notice the changes, but “to the engine designer, it’s a mammoth task to have all of these conditions mapped out, monitored, and have the engine’s control logic adjust to this constantly changing set of conditions to make it compliant with government regulations.”