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You know those trucks that deliver gasoline to your local gas station? what are they called? I tried oil tanker and ChatGPT told me the use hundreds of tons of fuel per day... right, ChatGPT was talking about marine oil tankers, not trucks.
Anyway, what is the gas mileage of one of those 18 wheeler oil tankers, and how much fuel does it carry? I am curious how far it can do, it it were to use all the fuel it can carry.
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Similar to any other 18 wheeler loaded, in the 5-7 miles per gallon range when I looked it up years ago
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Tanker trucks
A large one can hold 11,600 gallons.
Average tanker truck gets 7mpg max.
If it drained the whole tank it could go 81,200 miles, or about 3 times around the earth.
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True, 7 MPG loaded but several more MPG when empty which they are half the time.
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Figures like 7 mpg include a lot of highway miles without a lot of stop and go. The mileage could be a lot worse in town or where traffic is backed up.
When I was driving buses 40 years ago, I also worked evening shifts as a driver supervisor from the office. That included doing up the daily reports on miles driven, fuel and oil used by the fleet. The 35' buses would have mpg figures in the 5-6 mpg range after all of the stop and go travel and running 6V71 diesels for power. The 40' buses were in the 4-5 mpg range with a larger 6V92TA turbocharged diesel. On the routes with more highway mileage they would be towards the top of the range. The bus GVWR's was less than half that of a tank truck.
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Gearing helps. But it’s still more like gas footage.
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7 mpg is excellent for a loaded tanker.
I think the switch to EV tankers is not going to happen anytime soon.
Full disclosure - I made a small investment in Cummins (CMI) a few years ago and the stock has been on a tear. Up 27% over the past year.
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special wrote:
[quote=Speedy]
True, 7 MPG loaded but several more MPG when empty which they are half the time.
It's still impressive that you get 7 MPG with the thing full. That is only 3-4x worse than som cars and you carry a lot more weight and volume.
diesel fuel. but for comparison purposes, a diesel pickup truck can get upwards of 25mpg. however, the utility of that 25mpg compared to 7mpg is interesting.
