China Green Transport Summit 2008

In the beginning of the week starting with Monday the 24th of November the China Green Transport Summit took place. I was scheduled for arriving Monday morning but due to very bad weather conditions in Helsinki my flight was delayed some 6 hours. Fortunately, our hosts managed to reschedule my presentation and arrange for an emergency chairman for the afternoon session.

 

In the presentation Volvo Bus communicate the short term benefits of looking at total life cycle cost of ownership and environmental values and in particular for high capacity buses. Because of the recent launch of the new Volvo low floor hybrid bus this became a natural part of the presentation as well.
 
Volvo has a joint venture company, Sunwin, with our Chinese business partner SAIC. Our common agenda of providing superior environmental performance and because of the high ambition of Shanghai, the home city of our Chinese operations, we have been able to become one of the leading actors when it comes to emission performance and fuel consumption on the Chinese market.
 
The presentation led to many inspiring questions: i) the rational behind Volvo selecting parallel hybrid systems when many talk about serial hybrids,  ii) how Volvo pictures sustainable city buses in the future, or iii) how China can take advantage of Volvo’s BRT experience.
 
In short I responded:
Hybrid: Volvo has selected the hybrid technology to minimise the life cycle cost for the owner. We have put emphasis on reliability and uptime. It was not possible to find several of the key components available from the automotive supplier. Volvo has therefore made an effort to realise all necessary components that were needed to achieve the most competitive solution for HD vehicles and in particular buses. This may be a part of the reason for why Volvo has come further and to other technology than other actors.

Future: From a sustainability perspective high capacity articulated buses in combination with hybrid feeder buses will offer an almost perfect combination for city transports. The low energy use gives an exceptional environmental performance that is competitive to metro, tram and other heavy electrified transports. And, when it comes to cost efficiency there is even less competition.

BRT: Volvo is actively exploring possibilities to support the leading cities of China, which put priority to city emissions, with our experiences.
 
Other presenters spoke about the Chinese ambition to introduces Euro IV by 2010. The main path is SCR technology possibly in combination with “open substrate” diesel particulate filters. Chinese authorities will support the use of AdBlue for Euro IV.

Planet Energy

The 19th and 20th of November the Swedish Energy Agency held the yearly research congress.

The passed year with the initial oil price rally and with the financial strain we have been experiencing the expectations on new technologies were higher than ever. A lot of emphasis was put on energy management.

I got the opportunity to give the last presentation the first day and the hybrid topic was thus much appreciated.

Maria Grahn from Chalmers spoke about the preferred options for sustainable transports in a distant future, year 2030-2100. A conclusion was that the future technology development will be decisive for the preferred choice, from a cost perspective. Depending on the price of future batteries or fuel cells for example they electrical vehicles or fuel cells may become competitive. Or, as we discussed after the presentation sustainable fuels such as biogas may become competitive depending on the availability of biomass.

Some years ago I collected some information to understand the availability of biomass wastes in relation to the needs of the transportation sector.With reservation for not having a peer review, I got the following result:

EJ stands for Exa Joule (1.e. 10 to the 18 Joule)

Considering that buses are almost ten times more energy efficient than cars. It seems that we can still take large steps towards a sustainable society by combine energy management, smart technologies and improved management of the biomass wastes.

Stimulating the environmentally friendly transports

The Swedish bus industry has prepared an arsenal of actions that can be activated to stimulate cost efficient environmentally friendly transports. These suggestions have been presented for the Swedish government. Read the suggestions here (only in Swedish)

Volvo Bus Corporation supports the action with outstanding environmental products. Our product line offers Euro V and EEV emission performance. There is an increasing interest in biogas buses that creates a link from waste management via biogas fuel production to public transport.

The Volvo Hybrid Bus that was recently launched, has received an overwhelming warm welcome by the customers. After the initial sales to Sales Lenz, that I recently wrote about, many operators and public transport authorities have now understood that Volvo has taken the step from talk to action.

But, the most striking environmental performance is achieved by the Volvo Bust Rapid Transit (BRT) that actual cuts 50% fuel consumption and emissions of NOx and particulates.

To activate the actions the government needs to take some actions. Hopefully we can serve as a good example that offers both cost efficiency for society and environmental care.

Buzz resilience to bus

Thursday the 6th of November Crawford “Buzz” Holling was awarded the Volvo Environmental Prize 2008. Buzz was awarded for his pioneering work in resilience theory and implementation.

 Crawford “Buzz” Holling

A much appreciated panel debate was held with participation by the laureate Buzz Holling, Jacqueline McGladen, Johan Rockström, Stefan Fölster and the host, the Volvo Group CEO Leif Johansson.

For us bus people, the example of resilience with respect to global warming was most interesting. When looking at transports of person, it was agreed that the high value of meeting families and friends, together with the increasing internationalisation and growth of population, will lead to increased need for transports.

Although, Jacqueline McGladen remarked that we need to find other values for measuring the progress of society than economical growth. Rather than decreasing the number of journeys, its becoming increasingly important to reduce the environmental load of the transports them self and to make it easier to change to the most environmentally friendly mode for that specific part of the journey, considering all modes of transports. Increased use of buses was mentioned as an example. But, Jacqueline exemplified how Danish school children could decrease the need for bus journeys going from six buses to three, by changing the time for the start of the school day slightly. That’s when Leif Johansson remarked that he was trying to make a living from selling buses

At the dinner, I had the honour to sit next to Siv Persson at WWF. One of the inevitable questions, also discussed by the panel, is; how many people can the planet take? And, for WWF and all of us the question is also which impact on wild life and nature is acceptable. Even if entrepreneurship and development of technology can take us far in solving common issues like global warming, additional actions are needed to preserve the nature that we still have.

How I drive my car

When going to work, mostly, I travel by car. I should of course travel by bus more frequently but the meeting locations at work and the need for me to bringing one of the kids to school bias my preferences.

I have been logging my fuel consumption for the passed three decades. It has been my ambition to gradually lower the fuel consumption for my private travels, both in absolute numbers and as litre per 100 km.

The fuel consumption is measured by the amount that I fill at each tank stop. I addition I use the fuel consumption number reported by the on-board computer for comparing different parts of the distance.

I compete against myself every day. To do so I have invented some disciplines to help myself improve my driving:

a) Count number of times that I need to use the break.

b) Minimise the fuel consumed during the cold start phase.

c) Find the most fuel efficient route (rather than shortest or fastest)

d) Find the most fuel efficient speed (travel time) for my route to work

e) Characterise the car fuel consumption at constant speed, to reach speed, cold start, diagrams helps (I mostly do this once for every car once it is run-in)

Mostly, I run one discipline every week to get some statistics, except for the fuel consumption logged by tanking that I always run.

The fuel consumption in litre per 10 km of my 1600 kg Volvo V70 Diesel is 13% higher than for my 800 kg Toyota Aygo, Gasoline. In the diagram, data is displayed from driving to work (42 km from Diseröd/Romelanda to Arendal/Göteborg). The same principles of driving and fuel saving were applied for both cars. You also see data from a journey back and forth to Västerås 0.40 litre per 10 km performed with the Volvo, to reach such a value not only favourable weather conditions are needed, also extreme handling was applied out of which I can only officially recommend to use the maximum speed limit, in this case of 70 km/h.

It is highly modern to learn “Ecological Driving” today.

It is mostly taught to:

-Shift gears early

-Jump the gears, for examples 1 à 3 à 5

-Stay ahead of the changes in traffic

-Check tyre pressure, and keep on the high side

-Use the engine break to activate fuel cut-off when reducing speed

-Use down hill and up hill to optimise energy use

I use the same principles but I don’t jump the gears*. In the passed I have done some assignments that taught me some of the details of the modern engine control systems. I have therefore used some of that knowledge to ad further details to my driving:

-First I buy the right car for my typical travel (not for the extremes) or when I have access to several cars I use the right car for the right travel. I get a good hint from the data specification sheet. Usually the right choice is, lowest power and manual gear, unless you usually tow a trailer. For Europe, diesel is preferred for any traffic except extreme city driving.

-I take out all tools and gears that ad weight to the car.

-In the winter, rapid engine warm-up is achieved by using fuel burner for not more then 10-15 minutes

-In the winter, I don’t use the compartment heating, until the engine fully warm this usually takes at least 5-10 minutes (I dress properly). The same goes for heating of chairs, rear window, etc. I use them but to a minimum extent.

-In the summer I don’t use the air conditioner at all, unless the family rides with me.

-Downhill rolling is a delicate matter, depending on the event after the slope and on the decent, different methods come to use. If breaking will be applied after the hill I might as well use the engine break all the way to activate fuel cut-off. If the decent is steep enough I see to that the speed passing the top of the hill allows me to accelerate by declutching and rolling/sailing to recuperate the energy. Unless the slope is very modest I don’t use the gas when going downhill.

-Engine is shut-off at red lights (but mostly I plan the driving to avoid stopping)

-I avoid going faster than 90 km/h, the optimum speed is about 60 km/h for most cars (generally as slow as you can drive on the top gear)

-If I’m lucky to get a truck or bus ahead of me I optimise the distance to lower the aerodynamic losses

-I avoid taking over other cars

-When driving it’s my ambition to plan the driving to such an extent that it is not necessary to use the break. The average number I use the break on my way to work is 4 times. But, not rarely, I only apply it once, when stopping at the parking lot.

-When possible for my daily schedule, I stop at the park+ride and take the bus!

*In theory it’s OK to jump the gears but I found that for my cars and traffic it is better to keep the engine at low speed and to apply even earlier gear shifting. In case the rout is disturbed by unexpected changes in traffic I’d like to have the engine running as close to optimum revs as possible, i.e. lowest possible engine speed.