By using a simple energy recovery system in the winter to keep your cab heater working, instead of idling when the vehicle is off the road at fuel and rest stops, loading or unloading, or all those other occasions when a truck is not moving for more than a few minutes.

Until now, the only ways to keep a truck cab interior warm when the vehicle was stationary in winter were to either install an expensive fuel fired heater or to idle the truck's 200 to 500 horsepower engine to keep hot water circulating to the truck cab heater.

The AUTOTHERM® ERS

An alternative is now available in the easy-to-install AUTOTHERM® Energy Recovery System (ERS). The AUTOTHERM® ERS is thousands of times more efficient than idling an engine and so cost-effective it pays for itself in fuel savings in 4 - 8 months of over-the-road use.

This efficient alternative to idling or costly fuel-fired heaters automatically continues operation of your heater every time you turn the engine off. The AUTOTHERM® ERS substitutes a small but powerful electric motor for your engine-driven pump.

By circulating the same amount of hot water to the cab heater as the engine pump and keeping the fan operating, the AUTOTHERM® ERS keeps the cab interior warm for hours whether the operator is in the vehicle or out of it. Or they can return hours later and enter a warm cab that was securely locked. If it snowed, there will be no need to sweep snow or scrape ice off the warm vehicle.

The cooling system of any vehicle that has been driven on the road for a half hour or longer has reached optimum operating temperature and is therefore a storehouse of useable energy. In most trucks, this energy is slowly dissipated to the vehicle exterior when the engine is off. In a few minutes, the cab interior becomes too cold to occupy comfortably because the engine driven pump is no longer running and circulating hot water to the heater. AUTOTHERM® ERS captures this heat and puts it to use warming your cab, boosting your profits in the process.

A study by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Transportation Technologies assigns, as an annual cost for idling, a per-vehicle figure that exceeds $2,500 to $4,000 on average. These costs include fuel costs, engine wear and increased maintenance costs.

According to the DOE study, fuel costs wasted in idling truck engines across the industry exceed $4 billion each year and together with the cost of increased maintenance and engine wear exceeds $5.5 billion and represents the consumption of over 3.2 billion gallons of fuel. (Adjusted to current prices.)

Environmental Impact!

The environmental impact of truck engine idling is also significant according to this study. Emissions due to this wasteful and costly practice result in an output of 10.5 million tons of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas), 59,000 tons of nitrous oxide and 97,000 tons of carbon monoxide (a poison).

Elimination of truck engine idling has significant economic, conservation and environmental impact on the entire country, the trucking industry and on truckers.

The economic and environmental impact of the AUTOTHERM® Energy Recovery System is irrefutable. And it simply is this. An engine that is not running burns no fuel and emits no air pollution. And fuel you do not burn you do not pay for. The savings go right to the bottom line.