Nashville’s Fuel-Efficient Truck Prototype (RX-C10) is featured in Heavy Duty Trucking

by | Jun 23, 2016 | C10, Fleet, Fuel Efficiency, Mentions, Nashville, News, Test Drive, Truck

Earlier this week, Heavy Duty Trucking featured our C10 in a featured article! Here is the excerpt where Cumberland is featured and Patrick Mendenhall is quoted.

Breaking the 10 MPG Barrier

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Try something new

With that awkward possibility still nearly a decade away, there are still many options available to truck owners that can up fuel efficiency by a mile per gallon or more.

Cumberland International in Nashville, Tenn., built a fuel-efficient prototype called the RX-C10, which it allows customers to borrow for a week or a few to prove out the benefits for themselves.

“It’s fun to watch the customers’ reactions,” says Patrick Mendenhall, fleet sales representative at Cumberland. “At the end of their trial, we’ll give them an ECM download so they can see the numbers themselves, but they often don’t believe it. They’ll ask for another week just to prove it to themselves.”

Cumberland International in Nashville, Tenn., built a fuel-efficient prototype called the RX-C10, which it allows customers to borrow for a week or a few to prove out the benefits for themselves. Photo: Cumberland International

Cumberland International in Nashville, Tenn., built a fuel-efficient prototype called the RX-C10, which it allows customers to borrow for a week or a few to prove out the benefits for themselves. Photo: Cumberland International

Mendenhall says the test is as transparent as it could be. The fleet gets the truck for a period of time to use on its own runs, with its own customers and its own loads. Before and after comparisons couldn’t be cleaner or simpler, and nearly impossible to refute.

Mendenhall claims some of the fleets report mpg results from the trials of between 7.2 and 9.9 mpg, which represents improvements over the fleets’ standard spec of up to 2 mpg in some cases.

Mendenhall says his boss, Matt Smart, director of fleet sales, spec’d the truck for optimum fuel efficiency. It’s an International ProStar with full factory aero trim, an Eaton/Cummins SmartAdvantage powertrain, 6×2 drive axles, wide-single tires and a few more proprietary items.

“It’s not a SuperTruck by any means,” Mendenhall says. “It’s a pretty typical leading-edge fuel-efficiency spec, but it shows fleets how much of a difference such a spec can make, even if they don’t believe it’s possible at first.”

While Cumberland’s C10 project is primarily an over-the-road truck, there are still plenty of options open to fleets that are not exclusively on-highway.