Fuel Economy Technologies for Commercial Vehicles

Since the oil crises, improvement of fuel economy of commercial vehicles has become a vital problem common to fleet owners and vehicle manufacturers.

Improvement of fuel economy can he accomplished by combining a fuel-efficient engine and a low running resistance vehicle through engine and transmission matching so that the engine can operate in the most favourable area of its fuel consumption map.

To have gearratios suitable for various operating conditions leads to a multi-speed gearbox in theory. And the results of our experiments show that multi-speed gearbox can offer better fuel economy than 6-speed gearbox widely used today, but the frequent gearshifting it accompanys would prevent it from being widely accepted in Japan.