LowCVP announces Technology Challenge competition winners
The Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership (LowCVP) has announced the winners of its Low Carbon HGV Technology Challenge – a competition to identify and promote innovative low carbon solutions for trucks.
The winning entries are said to have offered innovative solutions to improve fuel economy and cut CO2 emissions by 8 to 25%. According to LowCVP, most of the solutions could be fitted to existing vehicles.
The Flybus consortium, led by traction drive specialist Torotrak, was one of six winners in this year's challenge. The Flybus system uses a low cost, flywheel based system to capture braking energy and release up to 100Kw to help the vehicle accelerate. This was designed to cut fuel use and emissions by some 20% in stop-start work.
The other winners were Hardstaff Group, SOMI Trailers, MIRA, Zeta Automotive and RDS Europe.
Solutions included products to: use dual fuel (gas-diesel); improve trailer designs to increase carriage capacity and also to reduce drag; optimise driving efficiency; adopt a hybrid-hydraulic power-train and a separate hybrid systems based on high speed flywheels.
