The Glade 4.0

The short answer is because the Transportation Industry is the poster child for penny wise and pound foolish. These systems cost some significant money up front, but pay out dividends over a few years, and most transportation management is short sighted enough that they don't plan that far, or don't know how.

The long answer:

Ground transportation is loosely grouped into 2 major areas. Private fleets and LTL carriers.

Private fleets are large companies that own their own trucks and manage their own distribution. Think Walmart, most large grocery chains, etc. These are the companies that have the best chance of using one of these products and a lot of the smarter one's do. However, the problem is that these companies are in the business of selling food or other products. Their transportation departments are cost centers and therefore the red-headed stepchild of the organization. They are always screamed at to spend less money. Additionally, the old joke is that the definition of a trans manager is a driver with a bad back. Meaning, that the majority of the transporation management doesn't have any management experience, or business experience. They have gotten to where they are by working harder, not smarter more often than not. So their typical day is running around from fire to fire trying to keep the wheels from falling off. It is extremely hard to get people in that type of environment with that type of background to look at anything beyond what happens tomorrow or next week, much less try and do a cost benefit analysis and present it to their senior leadership for a large capital project.

LTL carriers are true transportation companies. They exist to haul freight. Think Schneider, Roadway, UPS, etc. These companies don't do much with these types of systems because they bill their customers for the shipping costs. The comments about trans managers apply here as well, and in general there is less cost reduction pressure on the LTL markets because they just pass it through to their customer.

But really, the biggest reason why technologies like this aren't used in the trans industry is because it is probably one of the most conservative industries in the world. Truckers DO NOT LIKE CHANGE. Seriously, any change is bad, even if the end results are good. Drivers and by extension trans managers often have to be drug kicking and screaming into the 21st century when it comes to any kind of technology.

I never said that one could gain a 15% increase in efficiency without reducing towing capacity. It may or may not be possible.

All I said was that Kaffis' claim that the only way to significantly increase fuel economy was to reduce towing capacity was wrong. And that there were many aftermarket devices that do just that.

That said, I have no doubt that there are plenty of efficiencies that are possible within the engine as well.

I've always thought they handle tests independently, depending on what they are looking at. Wind tunnel, without rollers, for airflow/aerodynamics tests, then rollers for some tests, etc. Then road tests at the end.