Decarbonization Can Start With Trucks Already on the Road
Penske and Bridgestone explore a practical path to reducing fleet emissions
Decarbonization doesn’t always start with replacing the truck. For fleets looking to reduce emissions while controlling costs, some of the most immediate opportunities can come from consuming less fuel, improving tire management, eliminating unnecessary miles and turning to lower-carbon, drop-in fuel alternatives.
Improved fuel efficiency matters for reasons beyond sustainability. The American Transportation Research Institute’s 2026 Operational Cost of Trucking report found that the average cost to operate a truck reached $2.336 per mile in 2025, a 3.4% increase from the previous year and the highest level recorded in the study’s history.
Research from the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE) has shown that fuel-efficiency technologies can generate significant savings. NACFE tracks 86 technologies and practices fleets can use to improve freight efficiency, ranging from tires and aerodynamics to powertrain specifications and operational changes. Its Run on Less – Messy Middle report found that modern diesel equipment, when optimized, can deliver 10 to 12 miles per gallon (mpg) in flat or lightly rolling terrain and maintain 8 to 10 mpg in heavily mountainous regions.
Putting Efficiency to the Test
Penske and Bridgestone created the Decarbonization Lab to test commercially viable emissions reduction strategies under real-world operating conditions. They evaluated several strategies, including tire and retread technology, renewable diesel and route optimization, over more than 500,000 fleet miles.
During the session “The Power of Collaboration: Bridgestone & Penske’s Playbook for Cost-Efficient Decarbonization” at ACT Expo 2026, Bill Combs, senior vice president of partnership and sustainability strategy at Penske Transportation Solutions, and Erik Seidel, head of sustainability for Bridgestone in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, shared some of the results from the lab’s first phase.
Digging Into Tire and Retread Performance
Tires can be a significant factor in fuel consumption. NACFE estimates that rolling resistance accounts for roughly 30% to 33% of a Class 8 truck’s fuel costs and has identified low-rolling-resistance tires as a significant efficiency opportunity.
In the tire portion of the Lab, Penske trucks using low-rolling-resistance retreads, IntelliTire pressure monitoring and Bridgestone tire casings experienced a 6.35% improvement in miles per gallon.
Penske has also found that proper inflation, alignment and ongoing maintenance can affect both tire performance and fuel economy.
Reducing Overall Mileage
Removing unnecessary miles is one of the fastest ways to cut fuel consumption and carbon emissions. It can also free up capacity, allowing fleets to haul more freight with existing resources. Network optimization typically starts by establishing a baseline, identifying inefficiencies and analyzing whether routes, delivery windows or other operating assumptions can be changed.
As part of the Lab, Penske and Bridgestone logistics and engineering teams have been examining ways to optimize Bridgestone's automotive tire retail distribution network. The teams have identified opportunities to remove approximately 152,000 miles from the network. If scaled across the Penske-Bridgestone dedicated fleet, the companies estimate the changes could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 4% to 6%.
Testing a Lower-Carbon Fuel in a Different Market
The Lab also evaluated renewable diesel (RD) in Tennessee. Because RD is a drop-in fuel, it allows a fleet to lower lifecycle emissions while continuing to use existing diesel equipment. ATRI estimates that switching a truck from petroleum diesel to renewable diesel could reduce per-truck life-cycle CO₂ emissions by 67.3%.
RD has been shown to reduce particulate matter by more than 40%, carbon monoxide by more than 25%, total hydrocarbons by more than 20% and NOx by 10%. There are also performance benefits due to higher cetane, lower aromatics for improved public health, and excellent cloud point for cold-weather use.
While RD offers significant benefits, it currently has a more expensive feedstock than petroleum-based diesel products, which can create cost challenges outside states with low-carbon fuel programs such as California and Oregon. California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, for example, provides credits that improve the economics of lower-carbon fuels.
As part of the Lab, Penske and Bridgestone set out to test the feasibility of deploying RD in Tennessee, which doesn’t offer incentives, while also studying the efficiency impacts of running the premium fuel in the Penske fleet.
No Single Technology Is the Answer
The Lab has shown that combining multiple strategies can drive meaningful improvements in both emissions and operating costs in existing equipment, meaning decarbonization doesn’t have to wait for the truck of the future. Penske and Bridgestone plan to build on the initial findings in a second phase of the Decarbonization Lab in 2026, testing additional strategies under the same real-world conditions.
Penske can work directly with fleets to identify where fuel efficiency, tire management and route optimization could make the biggest impact on their operations today. Contact sustainability@penske.com to learn more.