Europe’s commercial vehicle manufacturers are driving force in transition to sustainable transport

Speaking at the annual ACEA Transport Policy Conference in Brussels, Leif Johansson stated: “The European commercial vehicle manufacturers are technology leaders and a driving force in the transition to sustainable mobility and transportation.”

Johansson is Chairman of the ACEA commercial vehicle board and President & CEO of Volvo Group. Leif Johansson called on the EU policy makers to ensure an integrated and supportive industrial policy, while seeking optimal synergy with the Community’s transport, energy and trade policies. He also urged the EU to actively promote the global harmonisation of technical standards and measurement methods, to help industry benefit from economies of scale. The commercial vehicle industry, furthermore, is seeking to work with policy makers to develop feasible policy measures to further reduce CO2 emissions from road (freight) transport.

“Our industry operates globally and CO2 emissions are also a global challenge,” said Johansson. “With ACEA, we are developing an evaluation tool to calculate real-life CO2 emissions from trucks and buses ahead of purchase. Our initiative marks an important step in realising the commercial vehicle industry’s ‘Vision 2020’, announced back in 2008, pledging to further reduce CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020*. Market forces play an instrumental role in reducing CO2 emissions from road transport as fuel economy is the main purchasing factor for transport operators. The CO2 evaluation tool will help customers to choose the most fuel-efficient vehicle specification, involving issues such as engine-gearbox combination, aerodynamic features and tyre specification. The tool will also serve to provide stakeholders-at-large with essential insight in the complexity and variety of road transport.

CO2 Evaluation Tool

The commercial vehicle industry has already cut the fuel consumption of its products by more than a third since the 1970s. Pollutant emissions such as nitrogen oxides and particulate matter have already been reduced by as much as 85% and 95% respectively since the late 1980s. CO2 emissions from commercial vehicle vary hugely depending on the vehicle’s ultimate size and shape and on the work it does, i.e. the load carried, the travelling distance and speed, the number of start-stops, and many more factors. Unlike for cars, the carbon dioxide emissions of trucks and buses cannot be simplified into an average tailpipe output defined in grammes of CO2 per kilometre. The calculation methodology promoted by ACEA uses computer simulation based on real-life tests with trucks and buses in a number of categories, ranging from city buses and garbage trucks, to delivery vehicles and long-haul transport. Emissions are calculated in grammes of CO2 per tonne-kilometre, cubic metre-kilometre of goods or passenger-kilometre to properly reflect the purpose and usage of the vehicle concerned. 

*compared to 2005