Iveco, FPT Industrial and
Bosch presented the Iveco Trakker Bi-Fuel Ethanol-Diesel
vehicle at Agrishow, which was held last week in
Ribeirão Preto, the largest agricultural fair in Brazil.
The Trakker vehicle is equipped with an FPT Industrial
Cursor 9 engine that can run on an ethanol and Diesel
mixture with lower fuel costs when compared to a
conventional Diesel engine.
Designed to be used by
sugar-cane and ethanol producers on their specific
agricultural and industrial operations, the vehicle has
been using a 40-60% Ethanol-Diesel average fuel mix on
early tests, which contributes to reduce fossil-fuel use
and allows for an improved environmental proposition,
since ethanol is a fully renewable fuel.
The Iveco Trakker Bi-Fuel Ethanol-Diesel has been
developed in Brazil with the institutional support of
UNICA, the Brazilian association of sugar-cane producers
under a program to promote “green policies” in the sugar
and ethanol business. Iveco began the Bi-Fuel engine
development in 2010 with technological help from Fiat
Powertrain (FPT) Industrial and Bosch. The prototype
will now be tested during the 2011 harvest by Raízen, a
joint venture company between Cosan (Brazilian largest
sugar-cane producer) and Shell.
So far, the 40-60% Ethanol-Diesel substitution rate is
giving a 6% reduction in fuel costs in operation within
the sugar-cane plantations. “We are still at the early
stages of development and certainly we expect to reach a
higher Ethanol-Diesel substitution rate bringing even
lower operational costs”, says Renato Mastrobuono,
Product Development Director for Iveco Latin America.
The Iveco Trakker Bi-Fuel prototype is a 6x4 truck used
for 63 ton GCM that can be used in several applications
on the sugar-cane plantations, such as articulated
liquid tank transport. It uses a 360CvCommon Rail Cursor
9 engine. The truck has two fuel tanks (one for Diesel,
another for ethanol). There is also an electronic
control unit specifically dedicated to each fuel, a
pressure pump for the ethanol system and a lambda sensor
at the exhaust manifold. The ethanol is injected
directly into the intake manifold during the admission
stage. After the compression stage, the Diesel is
injected to promote combustion. There is no need for
anti-knock additives of any kind. “Another plus of the
Bi-Fuel technology is that the engine can be fully
reversed to Diesel only application, which will make it
easier to resell the vehicle after its use in the
sugar-cane environment”, comments Mastrobuono.
ItaliaspeedTV:
Iveco Trakker
