Volvo Trucks launches “Every Drop Counts” Fuel Saving initiative!

Volvo Trucks

Apart from the ultra safe cars Volvo makes, in India at least, the Swedish firm is known more for it’s buses and trucks that have actually contributed more towards Volvo to building a brand in India than their cars thus far. Volvo is a leader in commercial vehicle technology and building upon that, Volvo Trucks now has launched a fuel saving campaign called “Every Drop Counts”.

Upon browsing through the campaign website, we found many technologies that are very relevant to the commercial vehicle market in India also and hence we decided to carry this piece on Volvo’s fuel saving technologies that could very well be a part of Indian Volvo trucks and buses in the future.

Volvo FH12 Globetrotter CNG-Diesel Dual Fuel Truck

Kicking things off, Volvo has developed a Methane-Diesel bi-fuel engine technology that currently is on test upon the range topping FH16 Truck. Now, that exactly is a Methane-Diesel dual fuel engine? Like it’s name suggests, Volvo trucks and buses of the future will be able to use both compressed natural gas as well as diesel as fuel.

The diesel helps in igniting the compressed natural gas, after which fuel from the CNG tank will keep the truck’s engine running. This way, both high fuel economy as well as low emissions can be achieved along with the fuel costs being reduced drastically. To combat the big issue caused due to the short range of CNG, Volvo has developed this technology for the truck to run for almost 500 kilometers on a stretch on CNG.

Volvo Diesel Electric Hybrid Truck

If in case, the CNG gets exhausted, the engine will automatically shift to diesel, thus making the non availability of CNG a non issue. Coming to the next big technology called DynaFleet, Volvo will fit it’s commercial vehicle with a tracking device based on telematics, that tracks a multitude of parameters ranging from time at idle speed to the driver inputs.

Volvo DynaFleet Telematics System

With this, the fleet manager can optimize fuel economy by making the necessary changes to the commercial vehicle’s operations and also modify driver habits tomaximize fuel economy. The third fuel saving technology is the adoption of an electric motor working in conjunction with the diesel engine. This technology will be particularly useful in the city where a commercial vehicle has to make a lot of starts and stops.

The electric motor running on rechargeable Lithium Ion batteries will kick in at low speeds and the batteries will be recharged by brake energy regeneration and through a diesel generator. By this,. Volvo hopes that commercial vehicles mainly used inside cities will emit very less and also end up being ultra frugal. This makes a lot of sense for intra city buses and garbage trucks which mainly operate within the city having to start and stop many times.

Volvo i7 Intelligent 12 Speed Automatic Transmission

The other fuel saving technology is the I7 12 speed Gearbox on the Volvo commercial vehicles. This gearbox perfectly matches the gear for the given speed and terrain using a host of inputs ranging from the load to the inclination at which the commercial vehicle is operating. Through this, Volvo hopes to reduce fuel consumption to a large extent.

Finally, Volvo Trucks has embarked upon a drive to convince fleet operators to ensure that their wheels and axles are in alignment and in top shape as these two factors alone contribute to more than 10% fuel wastage. Also, Volvo says that two out of three trucks have been found not to maintain the correct wheel alignment. Here’s a video depicting the same.

Finally, with all these factors working in tandem, Volvo Trucks of the future are expected to be much more frugal while also emitting very low amounts of carbon, thus making the planet a cleaner, greener place to live in.

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