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 26, 2012
    Debating road user charging systems
    Are pre-launch trials of charging systems the way to improve public acceptance? Or is the real key a more robust political attitude? Here, leading system suppliers discuss the issue. The use of distance-based Road User Charging (RUC) is now well established, at least for heavy goods vehicles on strategic roads. However demand management for all vehicles, whether a distance-based charge or some form of cordon scheme, has yet to make significant progress. This is in spite of the logic and equity of RUC being
    Read More
  • September 6, 2017
    Options abound for road weather sensing
    Meteorological organisations invest millions in super-computers to crunch data for ever-more accurate forecasts but inherent unpredictability means that other methods of alerting drivers and road authorities to fast-changing weather and highway conditions are essential. For years, static weather sensors to measure factors such as surface water, ice or high roadway temperatures have been embedded in highways to provide such data. But that is changing.
    Read More
  • July 31, 2020
    Covid-19 cleared the air: ITS can keep it clean
    Covid-19 has created cleaner air: ITS can help keep it that way – but it’s not going to be straightforward, as Graham Anderson discovers
    Read More
  • June 15, 2022
    Jenoptik measures out the future
    The speed of tech changes means Jenoptik is redrawing how it sees itself. Adam Hill catches up with Stefan Traeger and Kevin Chevis at Intertraffic Amsterdam to find out more about ‘extended reality’…
    Read More

Highlighted Content