Europe’s commercial vehicle manufacturers are developing an evaluation tool to calculate real-life CO2 emissions from trucks and buses ahead of purchase.
ACEA – the European vehicle constructors’ body – says that market forces play an instrumental role in reducing CO2 emissions from road transport and an accurate CO2-calculator would further support the customer in finding the most fuel-efficient vehicle for each specific transport mission. The initiative marks an important step in realising the commercial vehicle industry’s ‘Vision 2020’, announced in Hanover in 2008, pledging to further reduce CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020 (the 20% reduction is against a 2005 base).
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“Our industry fully supports the common objective to reduce CO2 emissions, and by sharing our expertise with the market as well as with policy makers, we will arrive at ambitious results,” said Leif Johansson, Chairman of the Commercial Vehicle Board of ACEA and President & CEO of Volvo Group, making a particular reference to the European Commission’s recently voiced intention to adopt policy measures to reduce CO2 emissions from commercial vehicles.
“It is important that legislators support our efforts with a policy approach that matches the reality of commercial goods and passenger transport. Measures should, furthermore, be globally harmonised. Our industry operates globally, and climate change is also a global challenge.” Johansson addressed reporters during the ACEA press conference at the international commercial vehicle show IAA in Hanover.
ACEA notes that CO2 emissions from commercial vehicle vary hugely depending on the vehicle’s ultimate size and shape and on the work it does, i.e. the load carried, the travelling distance and speed, the number of start-stops, and many more factors. Unlike for cars, ACEA maintains, the carbon dioxide emissions of trucks and buses cannot be simplified into an average tailpipe output defined in grammes of CO2 per kilometre.
The calculation methodology promoted by ACEA uses computer simulation based on real-life tests with trucks and buses in a number of categories, ranging from city buses and garbage trucks, to delivery vehicles and long-haul transport. Emissions are calculated in grammes of CO2 per tonne-kilometre, cubic metre-kilometre of goods or passenger-kilometre to ‘properly reflect the purpose and usage of the vehicle concerned’.
ACEA says that the commercial vehicle industry has already cut the fuel consumption of its products by more than a third since the 1970s. Pollutant emissions such as nitrogen oxides and particulate matter have already been reduced by as much as 85% and 95% respectively since the late 1980s, it says.
