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The Advanced Safety Vehicle (ASV) project phase 2 was organized by the Japanese ministry of lands, infrastructures and transport in 1996 as a five year project. Hino Motors participated in the project and developed an intelligent truck “HINO ASV-2”. HINO ASV-2 was equipped with safety systems for accident prevention and accident avoidance, which were most effective in reducing accidents in freight transport. These intelligent systems aimed to reduce driving fatigue, minimize the chance of driver’s mistake, and prevent the occurrence of accidents. Human-machine interface, and front underrun protection device were also studied. Through the development of the ASV systems, the feasibility and basic functions of these systems were studied. Further development is necessary to implement the ASV systems in production vehicles.

A driving simulator system for developing steering road feel has been developed. A new steering gear box or an electronic steering system is installed on the simulator and its road feel and control algorithm are developed according to the characteristics of any vehicle which has been programed into the engineering work-station. The vehicle model programed into the engineering work station runs according to the driver's operations, which are fed through the new steering system to be tested. The steer-restoring torque of the vehicle programed into the engineering work-station is produced by an actuator, and gives the impression through the new system of having been fed back from an actual road.

A diesel engine is advantageous in its high thermal efficiency, however it still wastes about 50% of total input energy to exhaust and cooling losses. A feasibility study of thermoacoustic refrigerator was carried out as one of the means to recuperate waste heat. The thermoacoustic refrigerator prototyped for this study showed a capability to achieve cooling temperature lower than -20 degree C, which indicated that the system has a potential to be used in refrigerator trucks not only for cargo compartment cooling but also for cabin cooling.

In Thailand, most heavy-duty trucks were equipped with diesel engine, while a small portion was equipped with compressed natural gas (CNG) engine. However, in the past few years the number of CNG fuel trucks in Thailand has increased significantly due to the cheaper cost of CNG. In general, the emphasis of heavy-duty diesel engine oil performance is on piston cleanliness and soot handling properties, while thermal and anti-oxidation properties are most critical for CNG engine oil performance. For truck fleet owners who operate both types of trucks, using the inappropriate oil that is not fit-for-purpose can adversely affect engine performance and reduce engine service lifespan under prolonged usage. A novel CNG/diesel engine oil was developed to meet both JASO DH-2 heavy-duty diesel engine oil performance and CNG engine oil performance. The candidate formulation was proved adequately fit for practical use regarding to thermal and anti-oxidation properties.

Hino Motors, Ltd. (Hino) launched the world's first hybrid city bus in 1991. Since then, the same hybrid technology has been refined and applied to a range of commercial vehicles, from city and tour buses to light and medium duty trucks, expanding the commercial hybrid vehicle line up. After 20 years of refining this technology, in 2011 Hino launched an all new light duty hybrid truck in Japan. An alternate version of the truck was developed to meet the particular needs of the North American market, differing from the Japanese model in several important features. The Japanese model's automated manual transmission was replaced with a fully automatic transmission, and the motor and inverter specifications were altered. This paper outlines the development process and introduces various characteristics of the technologies employed in the North American hybrid model.

A new model of 4 × 2 semi-trailer tractor was introduced to the Japanese truck market from HINO MOTORS last year, which has improved riding comfort and remarkable features for trailer connecting/disconnecting operations. This new model has two typical methods of comfortable ride, those are full-floating cab mount system and air ride suspension for the rear axle. Since the analysis of tractor vibrations and the vehicle height control system of this model have given satisfactory results, and their outline is described here.

Vehicle responsiveness to the driver's steering maneuvers and external turbulences caused by irregularities in the road surface and wind gusts are two opposing factors to be studied for better stability and controllability of vehicles. The cruising speeds of vehicles on freeways have been becoming higher, and wider physiological differences in the driving ability of drivers are appearing with the increase in elderly drivers. Therefore, to meet the requirements of higher cruising speeds and the expanding physiological differences between drivers, an electro-hydraulic feedforward control power steering system has been developed for trucks and buses. This is a parallel operating system consisting of a mechanical route and an electronic route, and improves vehicle responsiveness so as to absorb the physiological differences of drivers.

For the 1990's diesel engines, particulate control has been an important problem. The purpose of this paper is to discuss emission control needs for heavy duty diesel truck engines for the 1990's. This paper will focus on the factors such as fuel injection pressure and fuel properties which most affect particulate emission. The characteristics of diesel spray in the atmosphere and also actual combustion of a turbocharged and charge-cooled H.D. D.I diesel engine were studied as a function of injection pressure ranging from 50 to 150 MPa. Experimental results show that high pressure injection improves the atomization and air entrainment. Though Bosch smoke level, fuel consumption and combustion period decreased with the rise of injection pressure, particulate emission in EPA transient test cycle did not decrease dut to an increase of SOF.

Hino Motors is about to launch a new truck model FA as a family product of the model FB class 5 category trucks which have been sold since 1986, Model FA, a class 3 category cab-over-engine truck has a GVW of 13,500 Lbs. and is powered by a 3.8 liter direct injection turbocharged diesel engine which produces 125 HP in conformity with federal exhaust gas emission regulations for 50 states. The new truck was designed and developed to satisfy several principal design objectives such as excellent maneuverability, driving comfort, superior fuel economy as well as sufficient reliability and durability within the simplest possible structure. This paper describes its design objectives, features focusing on cab and engine and technologies devoted to the development.

The spark-assisted methanol engine has disadvantages like poor fuel economy especially at light load and low spark plug durability affected by combustion characteristics. Investigations of combustion characteristics of the spark ignition system and the autoignition system in the methanol engine and discharge characteristics of a spark plug are described in this paper. It is clear that effective autoignition was accomplished by increasing the compression ratio and adopting an EGR system in the spark-assisted methanol engine. This new improved methanol engine which is named HAMS achieved good fuel economy at light load, a low NOx emission and longer spark plug life. And a heat insulated piston with a stainless steel cap is being investigated for further improvement of autoignition combustion characteristics.

To reduce the vehicle fuel consumption at high speed, it is very effective to minimize the aerodynamic resistance of the vehicle, which forms most of the vehicle running resistance at high speed. This paper presents a reduction of the aerodynamic resistance of van type truck through the wind tunnel tests using 1/5 scaled model. Firstly, the aerodynamically desirable cab shape for cargo type truck is investigated by changing main cab shape factors such as corner curvatures. Secondly, several effective attachments for Van type truck are investigated, and lastly, the effect of these aerodynamic improvements on the fuel consumption are clearified by vehicle running test.

The 1st stage of automated mechanical transmission (AMT) was initiated in 1985 by Hino's development of EE-Drive, featuring a pneumatically-stroke-controlled, oil-sprayed coil spring type clutch.[1] [2]* This system made its way into city buses, thus expanding the market for automatic transmission (AT) in Japan. This paper introduces EE-Drive 2nd stage, to be installed mainly on medium-duty trucks, and featuring a hydraulic-pressure-controlled, oil-sprayed clutch. This system is characterized by smooth starting through controlling the pressure of the clutch disk directly. It also features quick shifting, because it allows gears to be shifted with no clutch stroke, but rather through decreasing the pressure. This will prove competitive with AT with a torque converter (HAT) which will appear in the 1990's as a sophisticated electronically controlled AT (ECT).

For the purpose of reducing fuel consumption, a hybrid heavy duty truck was considered. Generally, HV (Hybrid Vehicle)'s energy is regenerated from deceleration energy in urban area. Hybrid heavy duty truck's energy is regenerated from potential energy on highway. Under this circumstance, some portion of energy may not be accumulated, because capacity of HV battery is limited. In order to maximize accumulating energy in the next descent, HV battery's energy shall be adequately reduced beforehand. This can be achieved by optimizing motor assist torque considering road's altitude and gradient. In this paper, performance of the algorithm is discussed.