Scania has been awarded the ‘Energy and Environmental Prize for 2012’ from the German motorist organisation Automobil Kraftfahrer-Schutz (KS), for their intelligent cruise control system, Scania Active Prediction. The system can deliver a fuel saving of up to 3% when driving on undulating stretches of road by using GPS to determine the vehicle’s position and to predict the topography of the road ahead.
At first look a reduction of 3% might not seem a lot, and for a car this might be true, but if you instead apply the percentages on a 40-tonne truck combination (tractor unit and semitrailer) running 180,000 km/year, a fuel saving of 3 percent would reduce fuel consumption by about 1,700 litres (almost 450 gallons) per year. This would be equivalent to an annual reduction in fuel costs of almost €2,300 (about $2,800), and even more important a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of over 4 tonnes.
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