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Studies aimed at partial or total use of renewable fuels in diesel engines has increasingly attracted the interest of the automotive industry, in particular due to its characteristics of strength, durability and greater thermal efficiency. The oil esters derived from biological sources, who receive the generic name for biodiesel, is one of the alternatives used internationally. Their physicochemical properties are similar to diesel oil for providing an acceptable dynamic process of preparation and combustion in the engine. This paper presents and evaluates the results of experimental tests carried out in four trucks used exclusively B20 biodiesel (20% biodiesel and 80% petroleum diesel), and one with B100 (pure biodiesel), in real operating conditions.

Vehicles manufacturers, in search of cost reduction, fill the tanks of recently manufactured vehicles with the least volume of fuel necessary for future commercialization. The adoption of such practice, depending on the diesel fuel storage conditions, may lead to oxidation products formation in the fuel system and to problems during the first start of these vehicles. Some vehicles manufacturers, trying to minimize the occurrence of these problems, replace the diesel fuel in the vehicle tank with new fuel when vehicle storage time reaches 90 days. As a result of such occurrences, the opportunity for a first fill diesel fuel development, that presented better oxidation stability during storage, was identified. In the first stage of the special diesel fuel development, various analyses where conducted in laboratory, in the sense of defining criteria for the fuel formulation, taking into consideration the chemical variability of commercial Brazilian diesel fuel type A and biodiesel.

In order to evaluate the opportunities to use hybrid concepts for heavy commercial vehicles for emerging markets, MAN Latin America has developed a VW refuse truck with 23t GVW using the hybrid hydraulic technology. The in site vehicle tests measurements has indicated a fuel savings up to 25%, which means a reduction around 4.08 liters of diesel/hour or 20 tones CO2/year [1]. Thus, a collaborative cooperation with Rio de Janeiro Sanitation Department (Comlurb) was set for a truck evaluation on a real operation. This 3-month evaluation used one VW 24.280 6×2 hybrid hydraulic refuse truck and other VW refuse truck similar standard diesel. A random dispatch system ensures the vehicles were used in a similar manner. Global positioning system logging, fueling, and maintenance records were used to evaluate the performance of this hybrid hydraulic refuse truck.

Simulations tools like AVL Cruise and Vehicle Dynamics where used to carry on a comparative study between two trucks equipped with automated manual transmissions in two configurations: the original with 12 gears, and a proposal with 16 gears. The original configuration is world-wide used and in this way, the present study was fundamental to decide whether choosing the new proposal would bring the Brazilian option any advantages. In order to evaluate the whole vehicle behavior fuel consumption evaluation and vehicle performance were analyzed. From the present study, it was showed that the 16 gears transmission was the best alternative for the Brazilian application.