The self-driving vehicles are coming. And Freightliner’s SuperTruck is more than twice as efficient as a typical semi truck, potentially saving nearly 38,000 liters of diesel a year.
“They gave the truck a waste heat harvesting system; it extracts thermal energy from the engine exhaust (like a little steam engine) and then sends it back into the hybrid powertrain. The top of the trailer is covered in solar panels, and on a sunny day, the trailer’s air conditioning system can use solar power to run continuously without the truck even needing to be turned on. The truck got some extra smarts, too: it uses GPS to analyze the road ahead, and then optimizes its speed and shifting for upcoming terrain.”
Full article at ieee spectrum