James Menzies: With diesel prices exceeding $2 a liter in Ontario, Yves Poirier, CEO of Minimax Transportation, was extra happy to take delivery of the latest batch of Freightliner Cascadias.

That’s because they’re fueled by compressed natural gas, offering significantly lower fuel prices and the performance from the Cummins X15N engine that one would expect from a diesel. I caught up with Yves Poirier at Minamax’s Cornwall, Ontario yard to discuss the new equipment.

Yves Poirier:  You know, we bought our first one in January 2025, and we tested it, and we had some good results in terms of economy and reliability.

So, when NRCan decided to offer subsidies last year with their Stream 2 program, we applied and we were lucky enough to get selected. So, we decided to buy five more and really, you know, give it a good test.

Menzies: And what are you seeing in terms of fuel economy? How does it stack up with diesel, particularly at today’s prices?

Poirier: Well, right now, at today’s prices, will look pretty good. But even, you know, before this Iran war, it’s still a good a good investment. I mean, the trucks are, you know, there’s a quite a bit of an upcharge of about $100,000 to $125,000, but I think there’s still a good ROI even before these higher diesel prices. ROI of, you know, two-ish years.

So, it makes a lot of business sense.

Menzies: Can you talk a little bit about the routes that you’re deploying them on?

Poirier: So, we offer LTL service between Windsor and Quebec City. Right now, we’ve got trucks in Drummondville because we can purchase RNG there, renewable natural gas.

So, there we’ve got some running between Drummondville and Cornwall, and these sleeper cabs are gonna be running the highway, the 401, between Windsor and Quebec City.

Menzies: While at Minimax, I met Ian MacDonald, senior vice president of sales, Americas for Hexagon Agility, the company that provides the CNG tanks. I asked him what drivers need to know about fueling the trucks and how much range they can expect out of a fill.

MacDonald: This is your fast fill, typical commercial station. You’re gonna connect to this bigger nozzle, and, that’s gonna give you approximately the same fill time as the diesel.

So the fill and bezel will connect. There’s a lever that turns, and then it fills automatically and shuts off once it reaches full. We’ve got starter, interrupts built into the cabs here, so you can’t drive away while this is connected to the, to the system. It’s a high-pressure gauge here that shows you, typically, you’ll fill up to 3,5600 psi.

And, again, it’s auto shut-off, so the station will shut itself off when it’s full. And then this is most of the components in here. There’s four carbon fiber cylinders, and those are what retain the pressure of the gas at high pressure.

And then our regulator is kind of the main component in here, and that takes the fuel down and delivers the engine exactly what it needs regardless of throttle position. We’re putting exactly what the engine wants to see for fuel.

Menzies: What’s the capacity on this truck?

This is 170 diesel gallon equivalent.

So, essentially, that’s the equivalent of a diesel gallon of fuel. We say this is good for 700 miles or 1,100 kilometers. That’s kind of being conservative, making sure we don’t run out of fuel. But certainly, with the new X15N engine, we’re getting better fuel economy. That’s our new proprietary regulator, goes down to lower pressure, allows you to use more of the fuel.