Press Release – Brussels – 9 June 2017

European funded project results: Reduction of CO2 emissions from Heavy-Duty Trucks

On May 31st EGVIA organised a workshop dedicated to the results of EU-funded research projects having an impact on the reduction of CO2 emissions from Heavy-Duty trucks. The agenda covered three main areas: the introduction of alternative fuels, the solutions for better fuel efficiency in vehicles and energy management and recovery. Following the project presentations, a panel discussion addressed the challenges of future trucks.

Josef Affenzeller, EGVIA Secretary General, opened the workshop, highlighting the various ongoing research activities and potential for future initiatives and stressed the benefit of collaborative research performed at EU level.

Clara de la Torre, the Director for Transport in the EC’s Directorate-General for Research & Innovation announced that the first part of the mobility package was adopted on 31st May. She mentioned the key role of EGVIA in defining priorities and delivering green vehicles and mobility solutions for a competitive and sustainable transport system in Europe. Despite the efforts already made, Heavy-Duty vehicles still represents about a quarter of the CO2 emissions from transport. Various technologies have a real potential to reduce CO2 emissions but often only a mass adoption of those technologies on the market makes them cost competitive and creates a virtuous circle for a wider deployment.

In the first session dedicated to the expected impact of the alternative fuels on CO2 reduction, Jürgen Rechberger (AVL) presented the outcomes of the FCH JU project DESTA (www.desta-project.eu) about a fuel cell unit for the auxiliary power of trucks. Javier Lebrato (IDIADA) introduced the LNG Blue Corridor demonstration project (http://lngbc.eu/) and Johann Weinzierl (MAN) gave insights into the H2020 project HDGAS (http://www.hdgas.eu/project/) In addition the first session highlighted the critical aspect of infrastructure availability and the impact of the oil price on the wide scale deployment of alternative fuel systems.

The second session focused on the solutions for better fuel efficiency. The three demonstrators developed under the CONVENIENT project (http://www.convenient-project.eu/fe#) were presented by Jack Martens (DAF) focusing on energy efficiency systems, Giorgio Zurlo (Iveco) with a particular attention to active and passive aerodynamics and Olof Lindgärde (Volvo) who emphasized the predictive control of vehicles. Jack Martens also presented ECOCHAMPS (http://www.ecochamps.eu/). This H2020 project aims at cost reduction by common use of components in various vehicle segments. The results of the CORE project (http://co2re.eu/) were introduced by Johan Engström (Volvo). CORE contributes to an improvement of the overall propulsion system, covering alternative fuel use (CNG or LNG) and hybridisation. The last project of this session, OPTITRUCK (http://optitruck.eu/), was presented by Jean-Charles Pandazis (ERTICO). Since it started only 8 months ago, few results have been achieved so far, but promising activities are ongoing in the area of predictive powertrain control and calibration for intelligent trucks.

In the third session about energy management and recovery three projects were presented: NOWASTE (http://www.nowasteproject.eu/) by Vincent Lemort (University of Liège), GASTONE (http://gastone-project.webs.upv.es/partners_1) by Alex Rinaldi (IVECO) and ECODRIVER (http://www.ecodriver-project.eu/) by Roland Trauter (Daimler). NOWASTE highlighted the challenges raised by the use of simulation tools for Rankine Cycle applications. The GASTONE project raised the difficulty to assess each single device and the importance of keeping an integrated approach to achieve the most promising results. The ECODRIVER project focused on driver support systems and their demonstration, validation and user acceptance.

Following those project presentations, Alessandro Coda from CLEPA chaired a panel discussion about the solutions for the truck of the future. While Tony Sandberg from Scania focused his contribution on the new powertrains solutions for Heavy-Duty trucks, Neville Jackson from Ricardo presented the technological challenges related to electrification and simulation. Dimitrios Savvidis from DG CLIMA shared information on the upcoming CO2 legislation as well as the potential benefits of the VECTO tool. This led to interesting discussions on the cost of electrification for long distance transportation, the relevance of a well to wheel approach and the overall CO2 case while taking into account the production processes.

EGVIA will organise more events dedicated to project results in the future, stay tuned!

The European Green Vehicles Initiative (EGVI) is a contractual public-private partnership dedicated to delivering green vehicles and mobility system solutions which match the major societal, environmental and economic challenges ahead. With a focus on the energy efficiency of vehicles and alternative powertrains, the EGVI cPPP aims at accelerating research, development and demonstration of technologies allowing the efficient use of clean energies in road transport.

The European Green Vehicles Initiative Association (EGVIA) is an international non-profit making association aimed at promoting and facilitating pre-competitive research on road transport systems within the European Research Area. It focuses on technologies and the process chain, with the goal of improving energy efficiency.