Volvo Trucks North America unveiled its SuperTruck, which combines advanced aerodynamics, vehicle and powertrain technologies to achieve improved freight efficiency, in Washington, D.C. at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Tuesday.
The SuperTruck program was a five-year DOE research and development initiative to improve freight efficiency – meaning more payload carried while burning less fuel – by 50 percent compared to 2009 base model trucks. United States Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz was on hand to see Volvo's SuperTruck.
“Today is a special day for us,” Göran Nyberg, president of Volvo Trucks North America, said. “We are all proud of finally communicating, in a good way, the findings we have with this program.”
Volvo company officials announced a freight efficiency improvement of 88 percent – exceeding the 50 percent improvement goal set by the DOE program.
“When you consider a project like the SuperTruck, you think, of course, about the end results. What are we going to achieve?” Nyberg said. “But we took a slightly different approach … We wanted to see how we could take learnings from the project and deliver them to our customers … before the project was ended.”
With top-of-cab solar panels powering its battery and interior lights, to its aluminum frame and 425hp, 11L engine, Volvo’s SuperTruck offers a tractor-trailer combination that boosted fuel efficiency by 70 percent – exceeding 12 miles per gallon (mpg), with some test runs showing more than 13 mpg – in road tests, and powertrain brake thermal efficiency reached 50 percent.
“With the support of DOE’s SuperTruck program, Volvo Trucks has presented an exciting vision of trucking’s future,” Nyberg said. “Even more impressive is the fact that these tremendous gains were made against a base model Volvo that already in 2009 averaged 7 miles per gallon.”
Volvo’s aerodynamic SuperTruck has a shorter front end than conventional trucks on the road today, and the hood has a sharper downward slope. Lightweight fairings run the length of the tractor and trailer, and cameras have replaced rearview mirrors. Its chassis is made almost entirely of aluminum, which halved the chassis weight and contributed to an overall tractor-trailer weight reduction of 3,200 pounds, say company officials.
An enhanced version of Volvo’s I-See, a new feature that memorizes routes traveled and uses that information to optimize cruise speed and keep the I-shift automated manual transmission in the most fuel-efficient gear, helped fuel efficiency gains during on-road testing.
The downsized 11L Volvo engine features advanced fuel injection, cooling, oil and turbo-charging systems, as well as new “wave” pistons and other improvements. The SuperTruck powertrain includes a complex Rankine waste-heat recovery system, which converts heat normally wasted in exhaust into torque, boosting fuel economy by helping to power the vehicle.
“The order of magnitude efficiency leap achieved by our SuperTruck is a testament to the outstanding work done by our team and our partners,” said Pascal Amar, principal investigator for the project. “We started by rethinking everything, and we discovered that with every layer you peel back, you uncover new opportunities.”
While not every technology demonstrated in the Volvo SuperTruck will be commercialized, three of the engine advancements developed through SuperTruck research – the wave piston, turbo compounding system and common rail fuel injection system – are already featured in Volvo Trucks’ 2017 engine line-up. Likewise, a number of SuperTruck-derived aerodynamic improvements – like flared chassis fairings improving air flow around the drive wheels, a redesigned bumper and turbulence-reducing deflectors – can be found on today’s Volvo VNL tractors.
“Our work through this program is paying dividends for today’s customers through the SuperTruck innovations we’ve already integrated into our products,” Nyberg said.
Not every idea made it to the concept vehicle. Working with suppliers and academic partners, the team explored the performance and safety of a number of lightweight materials. While some of these, like recycled carbon fiber, were not used in the SuperTruck, the knowledge gained in material science will be applied to future programs.
The DOE recently selected the Volvo Group to participate in DOE’s SuperTruck II program, which will target a 100 percent improvement on a ton-mile-per-gallon basis, and a powertrain capable of 55 percent brake thermal efficiency.
