Capital Equipment News November 2019

Volvo Torque Assist is designed to give more fuel-efficient driving by automatically adapting the truck’s torque and acceleration to the road topography, the load and speed changes.

in its trucks. “Given that the fuel element – for a typical South African transport operator – is as high as 50% of total operating costs, at Volvo Trucks we believe we have a big role to play as an OEM to help our customers save fuel and improve their profitability,” says Gush. Gush adds that fuel efficiency improvements at Volvo have been ongoing for many years. “If you look at our fuel journey from 1976 when we first introduced a turbo engine to where we are today, we have seen a 50% reduction in fuel consumption in our engines. At the same time, power on our trucks has almost doubled. That translates into increased productivity at less operating costs, thus improving customer profitability and overall customer success,” adds Gush. The upgrades At the core of new upgrades is the Volvo Torque Assist. It is intended to optimise fuel consumption by enabling more efficient driving when the cruise control is disabled in long haul operations. Gush says I-Cruise, Volvo Trucks’ intelligent cruise remains the best way to optimise fuel consumption, but in some instances might not be applicable. “In this way we can support the driver to

Fuel – which can usually account for up to 50% of total operating cost – is a major cost that every fleet owner is looking to reduce

At the core of new upgrades is the Volvo Torque Assist. It is intended to optimise fuel consumption by enabling more efficient driving when the cruise control is disabled in long haul operations

The hardware upgrades in the Euro 6 Step D versions of the D13 engine, released earlier in 2019 for European markets, are also being used to raise the standards of the Euro 3 to 5 engines

In combination, the hardware and software upgrades will result in up to 3% fuel savings – 1% from lower friction hardware parts and 2% from the new software

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CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS NOVEMBER 2019 17