You hired your vehicles to work. But for many fleet operators, a significant portion of their fuel budget is being burned by vehicles doing absolutely nothing.
Engine idling is one of the most overlooked cost drivers in fleet operations. It doesn't show up as a line item on your P&L. It doesn't trigger a maintenance alert. It just quietly drains your fuel budget, accelerates engine wear, and adds up to a number most fleet owners have never actually calculated.
Until now.
A mid-size pickup truck or work vehicle consumes approximately 2.8 litres of fuel per hour at idle. That number accounts for real worksite conditions: climate control running, accessories powered, equipment online.
At current Quebec fuel prices of roughly $1.95 per litre, here is what that looks like over a 260-day work year:
A vehicle idling 6 hours per day costs approximately $8,500 in fuel annually. At 8 hours per day, that climbs to over $11,300. At 12 hours per day, a single vehicle burns through more than $17,000 in fuel per year, sitting still.
Now multiply that across your fleet.
A fleet of 10 vehicles idling 8 hours a day is spending over $113,000 per year in fuel that produces zero output. No distance covered. No work completed. No revenue generated.
That is not a rounding error. That is a budget problem.
A full-size work truck in Canada costs between $50,000 and $80,000. Most fleet operators keep their vehicles for eight years. Over that same period, a single truck idling 8 hours a day burns through approximately $90,000 in fuel without moving an inch. At 12 hours a day, that number exceeds $136,000.
You are spending more to idle your fleet than you paid to buy it.
Fuel cost is the number that gets attention, but it is not the full picture.
Every hour a vehicle idles is the mechanical equivalent of driving approximately 80 kilometres. The engine accumulates wear, oil degrades faster, and maintenance intervals arrive sooner. For fleet operators running vehicles on tight service schedules, idle hours are silently shortening the service life of every unit in the fleet.
Add in the environmental side. Idling engines produce exhaust at the worksite, increasing GHG emissions, creating noise in residential and urban areas, and exposing workers to unnecessary pollutants over the course of a full shift.
The cost of idling is not just what you see at the pump. It is what you pay over the lifetime of the vehicle.
Road crews. Signage and traffic control vehicles. Utility trucks. Construction equipment. Service vans waiting on site.
These are the operations where idling is baked into the daily routine, not because it is necessary, but because there has never been a practical alternative. The engine runs because the equipment needs power. The equipment needs power because the engine is running. It is a loop that most fleet operators have accepted as the cost of doing business.
It does not have to be.
Idle elimination systems like DuoTek break that loop. The core concept is straightforward: when a vehicle arrives on site, the engine shuts down automatically. A LiFePO4 battery bank takes over, supplying clean, stable power to all onboard equipment, lighting, communications, and tools. When the battery reaches a set threshold, the engine restarts automatically to recharge, then shuts back down.
DuoTek is a proprietary idle elimination system developed by 360Fleet, available in three battery configurations to match your vehicle type and daily shift length. It is modular, meaning you can add solar panels, an inverter, shore power, or additional battery capacity as your operation requires.
For fleet operators in Quebec and Ontario, funding programs may be available to offset the cost of idle elimination systems depending on your province and vehicle class. Contact us to find out what applies to your specific situation.
The bottom line
Idling is not a minor inefficiency. For fleets where vehicles spend hours on site with engines running, it is one of the largest controllable costs in the operation.
The technology to eliminate it exists, it is proven, and for most fleets it pays for itself well within two years on fuel savings alone. Over an eight-year vehicle lifespan, the savings dwarf the cost of the system many times over.
The first step is knowing your number. Run the calculator and find out what idling is actually costing you.
www.360fleet.ca/duotek