Heavy duty hybrids to go zero-emission in cities, says TNO

Heavy duty hybrid vehicles in future may need to switch to zero emissions when entering a city - and be competitive in their total cost of ownership. Speaking at this week’s ITS European Congress in Eindhoven, Netherlands, Steven Wilkins, senior research scientist at TNO, discussed the ORCA (optimised real-world cost-competitive modular hybrid architecture for heavy duty vehicles) project’s objectives of matching the total cost of ownership with efficiency. “Connected to that is downsizing the engine
June 5, 2019 Read time: 2 mins
Heavy duty hybrid vehicles in future may need to switch to zero emissions when entering a city - and be competitive in their total cost of ownership.


Speaking at this week’s ITS European Congress in Eindhoven, Netherlands, Steven Wilkins, senior research scientist at 7087 TNO, discussed the ORCA (optimised real-world cost-competitive modular hybrid architecture for heavy duty vehicles) project’s objectives of matching the total cost of ownership with efficiency.

“Connected to that is downsizing the engine. We very much want to increase the electric range of these types of vehicles much more significantly than at present,” he added.

Research group TNO is responsible for the overall technical coordination of ORCA, an initiative which seeks to design a greener and affordable hybrid drivetrain for heavy duty vehicles.

Wilkins posed the question of the type of ITS data that is needed for the vehicles to run to the audience at a session entitled Contribution of ITS to improve efficiency and reduce Heavy Duty Vehicle emissions.

“Within a city area, perhaps supported by a lot of charging infrastructure you may have the ability for the vehicles to be highly electric, and for longer distances we stay more with a more liquid fuel,” he continued. “But there is a whole class of vehicles that need to operate within the city centre but have the extended range of longer distances, so this mixed functionality becomes important for being able to predict ahead exactly what the vehicle is going to do.”

Related Content

  • January 31, 2012
    Managing congestion, better information changes perceptions
    Kapsch's Dietrich Leihs talks about the true fundamentals of urban pricing. In some Italian and German towns and cities, the solution to congestion is an outright ban on certain types of vehicles. As far as Dietrich Leihs is concerned, any attempt to sweeten the pill that is congestion charging is only ever going to be a partial success at best.
    Read More
  • December 6, 2012
    Debating the future of in-vehicle systems
    Industry experts talk to Jason Barnes about the legislative situation of current and future in-vehicle systems. Articles about technology development can have a tendency to reference Moore’s Law with almost indecent regularity and haste but the fact remains that despite predictions of slow-down or plateauing, the pace remains unrelenting. That juxtaposes with a common tendency within the ITS industry: to concentrate on the technology and assume that much else – legislation, business cases and so on – will m
    Read More
  • June 6, 2019
    Not everyone will embrace MaaS, says Lisbon expert
    Not everyone will adopt Mobility as a Service (MaaS) solutions, so we still need to have legacy ways for people to reach the transport system to satisfy everyone. This is one of the main messages at this week's ITS European Congress in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Vasco Mora, Lisbon's deputy mayor's advisor, said: “MaaS is great, and we need it, but we must not forget those that will not be included in whatever effort we make.” Volker Amann, CEO of consultancy company Avimo, told the audience that the p
    Read More
  • February 8, 2019
    US road infrastructure ‘needs more technology’, says leading Republican
    “America will never have the infrastructure system it needs and deserves if we don’t do a better job of incorporating technology,” said leading Republican Sam Graves. He leads the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the US House of Representatives and made the comments this week at a hearing entitled ‘The Cost of Doing Nothing: Why Investing in Our Nation’s Infrastructure Cannot Wait’. Ranking member Graves said: “Compared to other countries, our infrastructure is falling behind, and in so
    Read More

Highlighted Content