Search

The European Commission has indicated that Euro VII emissions legislation should be the last round of emissions legislation and should aim to ensure vehicles are compliant under all conditions. Unlike previous rounds of legislation this will be set against the background of stringent CO2 improvement requirements, so future technologies must serve to improve both emissions and fuel consumption. Ricardo examine what challenges this will introduce for engine manufacturers and what types of technologies might be adopted. A focus will be given to future exhaust aftertreatment solutions for improved real-world NOx control with minimum fuel consumption penalty. Ricardo conclude it should be possible to meet an aggressive emissions target without EGR or expensive external heating solutions.

It is generally accepted that for some heavy-duty transport primemover or energy-converter applications, battery-electrification is unlikely to meet the required balance of product attributes. This is particularly the case with the attributes of autonomy (range), mass, package volume and cost. In this regard, chemical fuels still have the advantage despite storage challenges for some. Ricardo expects that heavy-duty commercial vehicles will include combustion engines for some time to come, whilst transitioning from fossil diesel to a variety of renewable bio- and electrofuels such as bio-diesel, HVO, ethanol, methane, methanol and hydrogen

As stated by the EU commission, on-road HD vehicles (including busses, lorries and coaches) are responsible for approximately 25% of CO2 emissions from road transport within Europe. This equates to ~6% in total CO2 emissions in Europe and is expected to increase by 9% by 2030. This is despite continued advances in HD vehicle fuel economy. To combat this and help meet the Paris Agreement GHG targets, the EU commission has set performance standards for new HD vehicles to reduce CO2 emissions by 15% for the year 2025 onwards and 30% (subject to review in 2022) for the year 2030 onwards. This reduction is compared to a reference 2019 fleet CO2 figure and is determined using the VECTO simulation tool. For HD OEMs to meet these challenges in the short timeframe, new technologies, some not represented in the current version of VECTO, such as waste heat recovery, alternative fueled engines, predictive control strategies and hybridization will be required.

Within the EU, Heavy-DutyVehicles (HDVs) are a major contributor to on-road CO2 emissions, accounting for 30% thereof [1]. Heavy-Duty Diesel engines currently dominate the HDV sector due to their relatively high thermal efficiency and proven durability. In recent years, advances in engine thermal efficiency within the HDV sector have reduced the per vehicle CO2 emissions.