Airflow Starship - High-Mileage Fuel-Efficient Truck

Description:       

{The Starship Initiative is an innovative, material step towards reducing emissions and increasing overall efficiency and fuel economy in the transport sector. This next-generation class-8 truck features a custom, aerodynamic design and has already demonstrated what is possible for improvements in fuel economy and freight ton efficiency while lowering CO2 emissions.}

[Title]: The Future Of Trucking | The Starship Initiative

Duration: 8:03 min

Transcript

[Music] {Background music plays – upbeat, Sound of Shell}

[Video Sequence]
Open on close-up of The Starship Truck’s front lights. Cut to close-up of Bob Sliwa speaking. Cut to shots of car tires spinning, truck tires, pictures of Bob when he was younger, switch to car engine and workers in the shop. Cut back to Bob’s face

[Dialogue]
{Enter Bob Sliwa}

{Creator of the The Starship Truck}

{In my generation, all the guys at 15 and 16 years old were just enamored with cars. The brute force of a muscle car, the acceleration, the G-force, the power. I can remember as a teenager, having a very important race coming up at the drag strip, working literally a 20 hour day. I was dog tired, but it was the nicest feeling of being extremely tired that one could ever imagine, because there was such an amount of achievement that we did in that 20 hours to get the car ready for the race. That is directly analogous to what we do today.}

[Animated Video Sequence]
The Starship Initiative Logo animation appears over the grill of the truck. Close-ups of the Starship truck and Bob working on the truck.

[Dialogue]

{Bob Sliwa}

{The number one goal is to get the best freight ton efficiency. You want to move several tons of freight, the most we can move on one gallon of fuel. We spent 18,000 hours to put just a tractor together. Anything that you can do to a race car to make it go faster, we've done that to this truck to save fuel. If you can improve efficiency of a truck just a little bit, you're going to help the ecology, lower emissions, and you're going to get a lot better fuel-mileage. I'm extremely grateful to Shell that has given me the opportunity of a lifetime. I couldn't have done this without them.}

[Dialogue]

{Enter Chris Guerrero}

{Shell Lubricants, Global HDDEO Brand Manager}

{When the idea first surfaced, it was really born of an exploration into this area around fuel economy. There was a story that stood out to us, and it was really the story of Bob Sliwa. We saw him make a big impact and we thought this is someone we can work with, because he has passion in this space.}

[Video Sequence]
Close-ups of the Starship truck and Bob working on the truck in his shop, along with multiple people.

[Dialogue]

{Enter Megan Pino}

{Shell Lubricants, Global HDDEO Brand Manager}

{All right, let's do it. The goal of the trip is to measure freight-ton efficiency.}

[Dialogue]

{Enter Dan Arcy}

{Shell Global Solutions, Global OEM Technical Manager}

{How much energy is it going to take to move a certain amount of freight from point A to point B?}

[Dialogue]

{Megan Pino}

{We don't have a specific number we're reaching for, we really just want to see how good we can be.}

[Dialogue]

{Chris Guerrero}

{One thing that is probably the most underestimated contributor to fuel economy performance is the driver. And it's Bob Sliwa for us. It's the role that he plays in maximizing the delivery of that truck in terms of fuel economy.}

[Animated sequence]

[Text Displays]
Bob turning the truck on, California flags and map with stops.

Supers: San Diego, Jacksonville

Super: Mile 0. Shows Bob getting Dog into truck. Cut to showcasing the freight load.

[Dialogue]

{Bob Sliwa}

{The journey we're going to do on a transcontinental run will be from San Diego, California to Jacksonville, Florida. I travel with my constant companion, my 12 German Shepherd dog, Kayla. Kayla and I are inseparable, we're together 24 hours a day. And we're just buddies. She's my buddy, everybody needs a dog so they have a little bit less stress.}

[Dialogue on-screen]

{Megan Pino}

{We're ready to load in with reef material for the Coastal Conservation Association.}

[Dialogue]

{Bob Sliwa}

{It's as real-world as it gets, and we only feel that adds to what the kids call "street cred." That's how we do it. That's a safe load.}

[Dialogue]

{Megan Pino}

{What's interesting about a demonstration vehicle is that little things can go wrong that you wouldn't expect.}

[Dialogue]

{Bob Sliwa}

{The operational challenges, and there's obviously mountains between here and Arizona. I'm nervous that we've got a pretty tight schedule. No pressure for me. Right? We just have to get the best hopefully fuel-mileage and freight-ton efficiency in the world.

[Video sequence]
Screen shows Bob driving the starship, roads, scenery and highways.

[Dialogue]

{Bob Sliwa}

{The country is wildly dependent on trucking and transportation, for everything. Anything you buy, the piece of paper in your hand, the cameras that we're using for photography, food every day in the store, any of the things you get, comes over the road on a highway in a big truck. If somebody pulls next to me with a traditional truck with a 600 horsepower motor, if I did want to race them, I would probably beat them and make them cry. There's so little holding this truck back. This truck is theoretically geared to do 114.5 miles an hour. We wouldn't go that fast, obviously, but that just means that we can run it at extremely low RPM and the engine would be so down-sped, we're going to save a lot of fuel that way.}

[Text Displays]
Screen shows truck driving on highway. Animated lines show aerodynamics. Animated lines showcase truck parts:

Super: Roof Mounted Solar Cells

Super: Hyper-Aerodynamic Cab

Super: Side Skirts

Super: Boat Tail Spoiler

[Dialogue]

{Dan Arcy}

{We put 5000 watts of solar panels that generate electricity on top of the trailer. We support a full carbon fiber cab, aerodynamic side-skirting along the tractor and the trailer, and all the way back to the boat tail, managing the air that's coming off the back of the truck.}

[Dialogue]

{Chris Guerrero}

{It is the combination of all those parts that allows this truck to do what we want it to do.}

[Animated sequence]

[Text Displays]
Map of the state of Arizona shows truck trajectory. Additional scenery from Arizona, including a Love’s truck stop. Truckers taking pictures.

Super: Arizona

Super: Mile 360

[Dialogue]

{Bob Sliwa}

{There's not a cloud in the sky. And it's about, feels to me, like 100 degrees out here, but I'm sure it's not that warm yet. You got to feel proud when you pull into a truck stop and there's 20 truck drivers with their telephones up, taking a picture of you and your truck.}

[Dialogue]

{Megan Pino}

{We've had a lot of interactions with truckers today. We're really providing them with some education, talking about the technology that we've built onto the Starship truck. This has been a great opportunity to just start that conversation with truckers around efficiency improvements in their own truck, in order to lower CO2 emissions.}

[Animated sequence]

[Text Displays]
Map of the state of Texas shows truck trajectory. Texas flag, and truck event at Shell Headquarters. Shows people looking into truck.

Super: Texas

Super: Mile 1549

[Dialogue]

{Chris Guerrero}

{Thank you very much for coming out, spending time with us. What's next for this truck is an amazing thing, because this is just the beginning of the conversation that we're trying to drive. The intent for this truck is a laboratory on wheels, a learning space not just for Shell, not just for the Airflow truck company and Bob, but for the industry.}

[Video Sequence]

[Text Displays]
Cut to Bob driving truck into Jacksonville, explaining truck functionalities. Supporters come out cheering once truck reaches destination.

Super: Mile 2,410

[Dialogue]

{Bob Sliwa}

{39,000 pounds, that's a pretty gosh dang good load of freight. The brochures they've seen, the images, the pamphlets, even the video, doesn't really hold a candle to seeing the truck in person. They're just awestruck, and they can see the physicality of the truck. I think we're about two-thirds of the way. We've got a couple days left, and thank God. Arduous out there on the road sometimes. Right now, we're in 18th gear. We're doing 59 miles an hour, my feet are flat on the floor. We're only doing 914 RPM. So it's very quiet, you can't even hear the engine, you can just hear the tires. 5.8 miles, exit 343. Okay here we are at about 10 minutes after 6, through the evening, in Jacksonville.}

[Dialogue]

{Megan Pino}

{We made it! How do you feel? We finally made it! I'm fighting back tears, honestly. Just joy, excitement}

[Dialogue]

{Chris Guerrero}

{So here is to the vision and patience and perseverance, most of all, of Bob Sliwa. Congratulations on the run. Cheers. What an amazing feeling. A labor of love just means you finally got to the point where something really, really special has arrived. But now we have a responsibility to make sure it becomes even more than what it is today.}

[Video Sequence]
Cut to close-up of Bob driving truck, then images of his team woking on the truck in his garage. Close-ups of Megan Pino, Chris Guerrero, Dan Arcy, and Bob Sliwa. Group shot of the Starship team. End on the Starship truck driving off screen.

[Dialogue]

{Bob Sliwa}

{I'm extremely proud. Yeah, I'm extremely proud of it, and all we've accomplished. That's a significant thing in my book. We took something from nothing, and it came out pretty dang good, if you ask me.}

[Dialogue]

{Megan Pino}

{We wanted to put it to the test in the real world, and we did that. And so now, we're excited to continue on with this, to continue to make improvements. This is the beginning of the conversation.}

[Dialogue]

{Chris Guerrero}

{ This is just the start, not the end.}

[Text Displays]
Starship accomplished a freight ton efficiency of 178.4 ton miles per gallon. A    248% improvement over the average north American truck. Join the conversation #ShellStarship

[End Card]
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[Music Sound of Shell.]