Motor Vehicles and Parts News
- Alcoa, Yutong to design light buses
Date: 25-Sep-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
U.S. aluminum company Alcoa Inc. will work with China's largest bus manufacturer to design lighter buses using aluminum that will reduce fuel usage and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Zhengzhou Yutong Bus Co. and Alcoa hope to develop a prototype bus design before the Olympic Games in Beijing in August 2008, they said yesterday.
'We realize that reducing the weight of tomorrow's short and long-range buses will be essential for improving their sustainability and that the intelligent application of aluminum is one of the best methods possible to achieve such mass reduction,'Yutong chief executive Tang Yuxiang said in a statement.
China is trying to reduce the choking pollution in its cities, where black clouds billow behind buses as they pull into traffic. It has already introduced buses in large cities that run on compressed natural gas, or CNG, to help clear the air.
Reducing the weight of a city bus by 100 kilograms could save 2,550 liters of diesel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions over its life time, the companies said, citing a study by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Heidelberg, Germany.
Alcoa and Yutong hope to reduce the buses' weight by between 15 percent and 20 percent, they said.
The electricity-guzzling aluminum industry is promoting use of the lightweight metal in transport. It expects that savings in greenhouse gas emissions from more fuel efficient vehicles will offset emissions from primary aluminum production by 2020.
Shanghai-listed Yutong's parent is the partner of German truck maker MAN AG. It is trying to increase overseas sales as competition grows among the more than 100 bus manufacturers in China.
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