Press Releases

Energy efficiency in road transport is the topic Iveco CEO Mr Paolo Monferino is dealing with in his address to the 37th Symposium promoted by the University of St. Gallen as an initiative of the International Students’ Committee. The Symposium is a platform for promoting discussion and intercultural dialogue about issues associated with global development.
In his address, Mr Monferino presents the case for an industry where fuel efficiency is already a prime objective being a key point of competition between vehicle manufacturers and a major customers’ requirement.
Energy efficiency is affected by the vehicle itself and by the utilisation of vehicles. Mr Monferino points out the following issues:
• in the case of the vehicle, the fuel consumption should be declared basing on the actual payload transported in tonne-kilometers;
• regarding the vehicle utilisation, avoiding empty running is crucial. For this purpose, telematics have a key role to play in fleet management;
• regarding sustainability, mandatory introduction of biodiesel in blend of 5% in all Member States is needed;
• natural gas vehicles, in which Iveco is the acknowledged European leader, have to be regarded as a solution for urban areas due to their very low exhaust tail-pipe emissions;
• hybrid vehicles are an energy efficiency tool although only used to date in useful numbers for urban buses. It is clear that there is a role here for light and medium trucks;
• masses and dimensions, with the example of the Iveco Transport Concept, . can improve the role of road vehicles in the intermodal chain and return significant improvements in fuel and hence energy consumption. This is achievable through modest changes to current vehicle maximum masses and dimensions.
Finally Mr Monferino turns his attention to the work done so far in reducing tail-pipe emissions while generally improving the fuel consumption. He shows that fuel economy has made a significant improvement in the Euro IV and V emission levels but Euro VI could put fuel consumption back where it was at the Euro III level. Therefore he shows that an accelerated process of getting rid of the huge amount of Euro 0 and Euro I vehicles still on the road would bring more immediate results to air quality.

Iveco
Iveco designs, manufactures, and markets a broad range of light, medium and heavy commercial vehicles, off-road trucks, city and intercity buses and coaches as well as special vehicles for applications such as fire fighting, off-road missions, defence and civil protection.
Iveco employs over 24,500 people and runs 27 production units in 16 Countries in the world using excellent technologies developed in 5 research centres. Besides Europe, the company operates in China, Russia, Turkey, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa. More than 4,600 service outlets in over 100 Countries guarantee technical support wherever in the world an Iveco vehicle is at work.
Turin, 1 June 2007