Climate change is primary driver in the current discussions on CO2 reduction in the automotive industry. Current Type approval emissions tests (BS III, BS IV) covers only tailpipe emissions, however the emissions produced in upstream and downstream processes (e.g. raw material sourcing, manufacturing, transportation, vehicle usage, recycle phases) are not considered in the evaluation. The objective of this project is to assess the environmental impact of the product considering all stages of the life cycle, understand the real opportunities to reduce environmental impact across the product life cycle. As a part of environmental sustainability journey in business value chain, lifecycle assessment (LCA) technique helps to understand the environmental impact categories. To measure overall impact, a cradle to grave approach helps to assess entire life cycle impact throughout various stages. LCA is a technique to assess environmental impacts associated with all the stages of a product's life from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, disposal or recycling. A study was conducted on a passenger vehicle for life cycle assessment as…

Visibility is a critical factor to avoid the accidents and incidents on road. Every year there are over 5 million car accidents reported in USA. Of these 23% are caused by the hazardous weather and poor visibility. Driving in poor visibility increases the potential for a serious crash. Over the last decade 15% of the accidents on road are due to poor visibility in bad weather conditions. This paper addresses the poor visibility through the rear windshield glass of a car.A vehicle is designed in a way to provide the maximum possible visibility. But due to the vehicle design constraints, the visibility through the rear glass is very less. This visibility reduces drastically in the extreme weather conditions like rain, snow, dust and fog. At present, wiper systems play an essential role in providing better visibility for the driver in bad weather. Even though there are other technological aids like cameras, sensors etc.., they come with a high cost and act as only passive visibility for the driver. These cannot give as much confidence to…

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are considered one of the most promising solution to improve the sustainability of the transportation sector aiming at a progressive reduction of the dependence on fossil fuels and the associated local pollutants and CO2 emissions.Presently, the major technological obstacle to a large scale diffusion of BEVs, is the fairly low range, typically less than 300 km, as compared to classical gasoline and diesel engines. This limit becomes even more critical if the electric vehicle is operated in severe weather conditions, due to the additional energy consumption required by the cabin heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC).The adoption of vapor-compression cycle, either in heat pump or refrigerator configuration, represents the state-of-the-art technology for HVAC systems in vehicles. Such devices typically employ an expansion valve to abruptly reduce the pressure causing the flash evaporation of the working fluid. This component, although necessary to provide the cooling effect, is also responsible of a significant exergy loss, which reduces the efficiency of the thermodynamic cycle.In this paper we study the possible benefits in terms of energy…

This recommended best practice outlines a method for estimating CO2-equivalent emissions using life cycle analysis.

This SAE Information Report provides a comparative summary between the various messages found in the SAE ATIS standards work (notably SAE J2313, J2353, J2354, J2369 and J2374) and that found in the GATS standard (Global Automotive Telematics Standard). GATS is a message set meant to be deployed on mobile phone systems based on the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) phone system which is being deployed in European markets and which the SAE may need to harmonize with as part of the World Standards activities of TC204. This document provides an overview of the various types of supported messages and how they compare with US terms and messages. Some selected features of the GATS work are recommended for assimilation into the next revision of ATIS standards. No attempt at determining a U.S. policy in this regard is provided. This document seeks to provide the reader familiar with SAE ATIS with a high level overview of technical knowledge of the GATS approach in similar areas.

This SAE Standard provides a table of textual messages meeting the requirements for expressing “Radio Data Systems” (RDS) phrases commonly used in the ITS industry. They can be used both over the RDS subcarrier transmission media as part of a 37-bit long “Group 8a message” as well as being used to provide a common content list of phrases used in a wide number of other media and applications. This document SHALL define the normative index values to be used, extending the CEN established list to provide phrases needed by US practitioners. This standard provides non-normative textual phrases which MAY be used by implementers to ensure intelligible results. This document SHALL follow the formats and rules established in SAE J2540 in the expressions, manipulations, and use of such tables. It should be pointed out that within the rules established by this document a variety of final table are all considered “compliant” with the document, and may vary as fits the needs of implementers.