Advantages of Aluminum for Sustainable Transportation Outlined at Green Truck Summit

Thursday, Mar 11, 2010

Medium and heavy duty commercial truck owners can increase the cargo capacity of their fleets, reduce fuel consumption and emissions, lower their maintenance costs and increase their resale value by using aluminum solutions, said an Alcoa executive who spoke today at CALSTART National Truck Equipment Association (NTEA) Green Truck Summit in St. Louis.

Todd Summe, Division Manager, Product Design and Development at Alcoa, spoke at the session entitled, “Losing Weight: Lightweight Materials for Commercial Trucks.” He shared the stage with Dr. Carol Schutte of the U.S. Department of Energy.

“Aluminum offers the commercial vehicle industry tremendous advantages to reduce costs, while increasing its sustainability,” Summe said. “Think about the opportunity: aluminum can eliminate 30 tons of lifecycle CO2 emissions and increase payload by 3,300 pounds in weight-constrained heavy trucks.”

Summe, a member of the Technical Committee of the Aluminum Association’s Aluminum Transportation Group, cited a number of research reports that support lightweighting with aluminum, including a new study by the Aluminum Association and Ricardo Engineering on the fuel economy advantages of lightweighting in heavy trucks.

“Aluminum truly is the most sustainable material for transportation,” Summe said. “Research shows that for certain commercial vehicle classes, fuel economy increases as much as 8% per vehicle for every 10% weight reduction. No other material in the world will give you the combination of high strength, low weight and recyclability that aluminum provides to achieve these benefits.”

A copy of Summe’s presentation can be downloaded by clicking here. http://www.alcoa.com/greentrucksummit

To learn more about Alcoa’s commercial transportation capabilities, visit http://www.alcoa.com/com_transport/en/home.asp.

About Alcoa

Alcoa is the world’s leading producer of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum and alumina. In addition to inventing the modern-day aluminum industry, Alcoa innovation has been behind major milestones in the aerospace, automotive, packaging, building and construction, commercial transportation, consumer electronics and industrial markets over the past 120 years. Among the solutions Alcoa markets are flat-rolled products, hard alloy extrusions, and forgings, as well as Alcoa® wheels, fastening systems, precision and investment castings, and building systems in addition to its expertise in other light metals such as titanium and nickel-based super alloys. Sustainability is an integral part of Alcoa’s operating practices and the product design and engineering it provides to customers. Alcoa has been a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for eight consecutive years and approximately 75 percent of all of the aluminum ever produced since 1888 is still in active use today. Alcoa employs approximately 59,000 people in 31 countries across the world. More information can be found at www.alcoa.com.

Source: Alcoa