December 28, 2016 Vol. 13 No. 26

So another year is almost finished and that means another chance to head way out on a limb and name 10 products that I think are especially worthy of note from 2016. It’s an entirely subjective review, of course, and you may well disagree with every last one of them.

My shortlist was three times as long, not surprisingly. Even so, I ruled out whole trucks and trailers and other products that may have been announced but weren’t actually available in 2016. That left out some cool machinery from Freightliner and International, among others. Given the profusion of products in the realm of electronic logs and fleet-management software, I felt I had to leave that one alone as well. I could have filled my entire list and still left out some good ones, so I opted to ignore it entirely.

With one exception, that being the unique True Fuel tool from Vnomics Corp. in Rochester, NY. Now a more developed but very simple stand-alone fuel-optimization product, it was formerly a component of the company’s telematics platform — and it began with a military application created at the Rochester Institute of Technology. In that context its purpose was data analysis to resolve a serious challenge, namely helping soldiers in bad-guy country understand and deal with their broken-down tank or truck or such, miles away from ‘the shop’ and often in real jeopardy. The modern soldier is apparently much like many modern truck drivers — increasingly less mechanically inclined.

By all accounts it can make a difference in fleets large and small with minimal cost and heartburn, so it seems to me that this one merits mention at the top of my list for its potential to save fuel. Otherwise I’m listing my Top 10 in alphabetical order by manufacturer’s name.

Please note that the text of this newsletter — with more photographs — will also appear in the January issue of Today’s Trucking magazine.

TRUE FUEL FROM VNOMICS — An advanced analytics outfit, Vnomics says its patented, stand-alone True Fuel system “significantly” improves fuel economy through real-time driver coaching and precise, comprehensive fuel-use analytics for fleet managers.

How about a 400% return on investment by way of fuel-economy gains within a year? That’s the claim, according to company CEO Alan Farnsworth, and it’s backed up by real on-the-road experience.

True Fuel can be used by any fleet, regardless of its size or telematics platform. It’s been proven to provide a 3-10% fleet-wide fuel saving on several thousand vehicles. And it’s easy to install the little black box at the heart of things — think 10 minutes.