European commercial vehicle manufacturers are developing an evaluation tool to calculate real-life CO2 emissions from trucks and buses ahead of purchase. 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.
“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”, says Leif Johansson, chairman of the Commercial Vehicle Board of ACEA and president and chief executive of Volvo Group.
The CO2 evaluation tool is designed to help customers to choose the most fuel-efficient vehicle specification, involving issues such as engine-gearbox combination, aerodynamic features and tyre specification.
CO2 emissions from commercial vehicles vary hugely depending on the vehicle’s ultimate size and shape and on the work it does (ie the load carried, the travelling distance and speed, the number of start-stops, and many more factors). Unlike for cars, the carbon dioxide emissions of trucks and buses cannot be simplified into an average tailpipe output defined in grammes of CO2 per kilometre.