Achieving the proposed EU heavy-duty truck 2030 CO2 legislation

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.This paper will evaluate the potential CO2 benefit of selected HD technologies and technology packages expected to meet the EU HDV 2030 CO2 legislation. It will focus on the 4x2 tractor unit application over the VECTO long haul and regional delivery drive cycles. Additionally, the commercial viability of these packages will be investigated. The use of VECTO as an effective certification tool for measuring Heavy Duty Vehicle (HDV) CO2 emissions will also be discussed.