Gentlemen, start your (cleaner, higher MPG) engines

Heavy trucks — including vocational trucks, mostly in our case dumps  — future fuel mileage and emissions are coming under Washington’s control.

Proposed federal standards for greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy for heavy-duty trucks announced Oct. 25 would reduce CO2 emissions and fuel consumption 20 percent by the 2018 model year.

For vocational vehicles the start year is 2014 with a proposed 10 percent reduction in fuel consumption and CO2 emission to be achieved by 2018. The vocational standards vary by weight class: Light Heavy (Class 3-5); Medium Heavy (Class 6-7); and Heavy Heavy (Class 8).

Read what my colleague Avery Vise (head honcho of Commercial Carrier Journal) makes of it all here and go to his digital edition for more here.