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Some of the largest growth in the trucking segment this year has been in light- through medium-duty, and that is expected to continue for quite some time.
According to a MacKay and Associates study, there were 3.6 million vehicles on the road in 1982 and a whopping 63 percent of them were Class 6 (50 percent) and Class 7 (13 percent).
Fast forward to 2012. Class 6 and Class 7 lost market share to Class 8, but the trucking population boomed. And considering medium-duty vocational trucks are made up of school buses, refuse, construction, agriculture, private fleet and a host of other service and delivery applications, you probably see several dozen vocational trucks on the road during your daily commute or use them in your day-to-day operations.
Also, medium-duty trucks and vans – specifically garbage trucks and passenger vans – are among the vehicles on the leading edge of natural gas engine implementation. And they are among the largest users of propane engines.
Andrew Littlefair, CEO of Clean Energy Fuels, says this year 63 percent of all the new refuse trucks being purchased are natural gas. Another 35 percent of all new buses are natural gas.
It’s an exciting time for the medium-duty market place and for those who support it.
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Jason Cannon is Online Managing Editor for Hard Working Trucks. You can follow me on twitter at @By_Jason_Cannon
