Fuel costs are rising, and fleet managers are feeling the pressure. In an industry where operational costs are constantly under scrutiny, every penny counts. According to Shell’s “Decarbonizing Road Freight: Getting into Gear” report, fuel in diesel trucks now accounts for nearly half of a truck’s operational costs, while maintenance spend typically accounts for 10% of operational costs. While the spend on maintenance is typically smaller, overlooking the role of lubricants, an important piece to the puzzle, could be a costly mistake.
With operational efficiency a primary consideration for fleet managers around the world, Lubes’n’Greases spoke to Frank Machatschek, Shell product application specialist for heavy-duty engine oil OEMs in Europe, for expert insights on the role lubricant selection can play in ensuring fleet performance and getting the most out of every kilometer traveled.
“The higher the quality of the oil, the higher the fuel economy, and the more durable the truck is when managing a range of conditions. Whether you’re moving a heavy load through extreme heat or off-road terrain, the quality of the oil you choose matters,” Machatschek said. “Ultimately, high-performance, low-viscosity lubricants take less power from the engine, which leaves more power to drive the truck—using less fuel for the same distance. It’s a simple equation and advanced lubricants offer a ready-to-roll-out solution that can reap instant rewards.”
Three Ways that Lubrication Can Help to Cut Costs
When asked why there is still something of a blind spot when it comes to recognizing the potential value of high-quality lubrication, Machatschek pointed to the complex nature of managing fleets.
“Given the many pressing challenges facing fleet operators today—from societal and stakeholder pressure to reduce emissions through to operational issues like driver shortages and delivering efficiencies in a climate of rising costs—lubricant selection is all too easily overlooked,” he said. “However, this oversight can be a costly one, given the potential that today’s high-performance lubricants have to enhance engine efficiency and reliability, thereby reducing overall fleet costs.”
Three key factors make lubricant selection worth keeping front of mind for any operator wanting to enhance operational efficiency:
- Improved fuel economy: It is universally understood that the better a vehicle’s fuel economy, the more productive and profitable fuel spend becomes as a facet of Total Cost of Operations (TCO). Lesser known, however, is the combined efficiency potential of both fuel and lubrication. Tests in real-life city and urban conditions show that together, Shell’s premium fuels and lubricants can equate to 8.9% better fuel economy and 5.28% more load-pulling power when compared to regular diesel and standard lubricants. This is thanks to cleaned-up fuel injectors.
- Lower risk of breakdown: Protection is the name of the game when it comes to lubrication, with high-quality oils targeting the acids and deposits that can lead to corrosion. Advanced lubricants also provide much needed wear control to such high-pressure contact points as engine valve trains and the piston/piston ring/liner group, all of which lowers the likelihood of breakdown and unplanned maintenance. It also leads to a reduction in the significant costs associated with both.
- Extended engine and engine oil life: If kept protected and productive, vehicles can work harder and for longer. The right lubricant achieves this not only by providing engine protection but by also enabling longer oil drain intervals, lowering maintenance costs across the lifetime of the vehicle.
Unlike many fuel efficiency and engine protection technologies, which can be costly and complex to retrofit, low-viscosity oils offer a simple to roll out, quick pay back solution that can be incorporated at any point in a truck’s life and easily applied across a fleet.
“A lubricant’s impact can be immediate,” Machatschek noted. “This doesn’t mean that focus can be taken off other pivotal factors impacting vehicle performance, like driver training or route management. But the fact that lubricants can be put in place and left to work means that fleet operators can sit back and reap the operational efficiency benefits lubricants offer, leaving them free to focus on more immediate, hands-on issues.”
Why Low Viscosity Means High Performance
Particularly in a cost-conscious climate, deciding to increase outlay on anything can be a difficult decision to make. When it comes to your lubrication, however, spending less can often end up costing more in the long run due to such unintended consequences as additional maintenance, unplanned downtime or simply poor vehicle performance.
“It may seem counterintuitive,” Machatschek said, “but when fuel costs are high this is the exact time you should be looking to upgrade lubricant selection. I always remind my customers that a good quality, low-viscosity lubricant is a lot less costly than other fuel economy solutions and it will work immediately to lower fuel consumption, reduce maintenance intervals and can even reduce your fleet’s emissions once you make the change.”
In 2023, Shell’s prototype Starship 3.0 truck took this concept out on the road. Equipped with a Cummins X15N natural gas engine powered by renewable natural gas (RNG) and supported by Shell Rotella engine oil, it ran a fully loaded trailer on an 840-mile loop throughout California. Successfully completing its demonstration run, Starship 3.0 achieved two and a half times greater freight ton efficiency (FTE) compared to the U.S. average for diesel class 8 trucks.
Furthermore, in field trials reported in Shell’s 2021 white paper “Linking Lubricants to Improved Fuel Economy and Reduced CO2 Emission,” Shell Rotella T5 synthetic blend 10W-30 HDEO demonstrated a 2% fuel economy benefit compared with a standard 15W-40 engine oil. Research from the same white paper reports that a 1% improvement in fuel economy would save U.S. fleet owners and operators $3 million a day. It is easy to see that the potential efficiencies offered by advanced lubricant solutions add up quickly.
It is no surprise then that according to NACFE’s (North American Council for Fleet Efficiency) 2024 Fleet Fuel Study, more than 90% of fleets studied have now adopted low-viscosity engine oil—up from 70% in 2015.
How Today’s Advanced Lubricants Work
When asked to explain how today’s low-viscosity lubricant technology achieves these types of efficiencies, Machatschek turned to an everyday fitness analogy. “Imagine the effort required to wade through water compared with walking through air,” he said. “Pushing through water would use your energy more quickly and force you to breathe harder (and emit more CO2). Eventually, this effort would make you hungry and want to replace lost fuel. It’s no different with heavy-duty engines.”
As in this analogy, the engine requires less energy to pump a low-viscosity lubricant, thus reducing fuel demand and associated emissions. So, low-viscosity oils work by reducing friction. They also flow more quickly through the engine during start-up—an important performance property.
However, simply lowering viscosity is not enough. Advanced lubricants and oils need to improve fuel efficiency, but they also need to do so much more. They need to ensure engine protection in challenging conditions, keep trucks on the road and keep operating costs down. And operators are also looking for longer oil drain intervals and for lubricants to work in tandem with biofuels. In short, low-viscosity oils today must work harder under tough conditions for longer periods of time, and be compatible with an ever-changing fuel landscape.
Fortunately, thanks to regulatory and OEM developments, the quality of lubricants available has never been higher. The new Shell Rimula R7 range of low-viscosity oils are approved by leading OEMs for use in their latest generation of fuel-efficient engines. These products—with a viscosity range of SAE 0W-20, SAE 5W-30 and SAE 5W-20—demonstrated improved fuel economy performance combined with strong durability, proven across a range of field trial testing.
“Lubricant innovation over the last few years has been significant, and we have been able to develop robust, durable, ultra-low-viscosity oils that meet the stringent requirements of OEMs while delivering all-important performance and efficiency benefits. Ultimately that means that every fleet operator today needs to make lubricant selection front and center of their future success strategy,” Machatschek concluded.
Lubricants might feel like a relatively minor consideration for fleet managers operating in an increasingly complex and challenging landscape. But, by integrating advanced lubricants into their cost-saving strategies, fleet managers can be empowered to keep their vehicles running at peak performance today, while driving competitiveness and resilience for the journeys of tomorrow.
Frank Machatschek is a Shell product application specialist for heavy-duty engine oil (HDEO) OEMs in Europe. He is responsible for delivering global lubricant-related support to German OEMs such as Daimler Truck and MAN. In addition to providing technical support, he has worked on Shell’s product development offering for HDEOs, which included undertaking field trials with prototype oils in collaboration with fleet-specific OEMs around the globe.