If you have been wondering what light truck sales predictions are for the year 2011 you have to look no further than the increase in the requests for diesel cards for fleet fueling programs. It is amazing how accurately requests for diesel and gas cards can track the trends in vehicle purchases, particularly for the larger types of fleet purchases. As with most types of consumer goods, the more vehicles that are purchased by fleets the more the demand will be in private sales as well.

Diesel cards have become popular with fleet managers for several reasons. The first is that the new designs and technology associated with diesel cards, particularly the fleet cards, allows instantaneous tracking of all card use in real time online. A fleet manager can see what purchases are being made, odometer readings, average miles per gallon and even the time and grade of fuel purchased. This allows the greatest control when using these cards, even if you don’t want to preset spending limits, use limits or other control factors offered.

These cards may be used by each driver in a vehicle, in other words they are assigned to a specific vehicle, or they can be assigned to a particular driver. Either option works well for tracking, depending on the way in which your fleet and drivers are assigned and managed. Light diesel trucks may be assigned to one employee, which makes sense if the work requires the driver to carry tools, specialized equipment or to work on a specific type of job. For more general types of work different drivers may be assigned to different trucks, making the card with the truck a better option.

Diesel truck sales are predicted to continue to increase through 2011 and into the future for several different reasons. They are very practical to drive, which is why may fleets have converted from gasoline light trucks and cars to diesel models. Diesel engines tend to have a longer life with fewer maintenance and repair costs over the average life of the engine, which is an ideal combination for large fleets where maintenance and repairs can be a full time job.

With fewer issues these engines are much more dependable in all types of vehicles and also tend to hold their resale value. This means that fleet managers can retain the vehicles longer before trading them in or selling them and having to deal with the cost of replacement vehicles. With higher resale values and longer life it just makes good sense to move away from gasoline powered trucks and into diesel.

High costs of fuel are also driving sales of diesel trucks. While diesel is a bit more expensive than gasoline at the pumps there is higher fuel efficiency and better gas mileage in diesel engines. In other words it may cost a bit more at the pump but you will also drive further and longer on the same amount of fuel. The slight difference in price, along with the rebate you get when using diesel cards, more than makes up and difference in this area. New cleaner burning diesel grades and higher performance engines have also contributed to the efficiency of using diesel engines. Light trucks that have diesel engines are no longer the plain Jane trucks either. These trucks can be very basic and functional but they can also be luxury types of trucks complete with leather interiors, computer and navigational systems and all the extras you would expect in a top of the line vehicle.

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