Biglorryblog has spotted a post on its fellow Road Transport Group blogsite Future Fuel Debate about a new patent Jost has filed for an automated fifth wheel. It says:
There's so much attention given to alternative fuels and their virtues of saving the planet (including on this piece of cyber space), but are we not forgetting about what we already have and how we can make small changes to improve fuel consumption.
Look at Jost. The engineering firm that makes fifth wheels. They've filed a patent for an automated fifth wheel that essentially closes the gap between the truck and trailer at high speeds and increases it at low speeds more greater manouvrability in town.
Also
it can raise and lower the trailer to fit snuggly on the tractor
too. Moreover, it works in conjunction with a wind deflector so to make
the truck as slippery as possible through the air. See pre-school
annotations above.
There's no word on when it will come to market (or indeed if it will at all), but on the face of it, it looks like it could be an innovative way to easily reduce fuel consumption.
It would definitely be a fuel saver. However what is the affect on the stability of the fifth wheel? In strong cross winds fifth wheels tow better as they are hitched to the towing vehicle. However if you move that hitch closer towards the steering wheels of the vehicle then perhaps you could introduce more sway again. So as long as it doesn't introduce more sway in cross winds then it definitely makes sense to save fuel. Alternatively there could be an override of the automatic system so that you could shift the hitch backwards if additional sway turned out to be a problem in strong cross winds.