Bosch electrifies semitrailers
The principle: Instead of simply rolling the axles of the trailer as today, Bosch integrates an electric motor there. This allows energy to be generated during braking, which can supply the cooling units of the tractor unit, for example. Using a refrigerated trailer as an example, the saving can be 10,000 euros per year. According to Bosch calculations, operating the cooling system with the energy generated can save up to 9,000 liters of diesel fuel per year. Additional fuel savings can result from an electric starting and acceleration support. And every fuel saved also reduces CO2 emissions. Another advantage, especially for the delivery traffic of inner-city supermarkets: Electrically driven cooling units are considerably quieter than diesel-powered units. This also allows deliveries early in the morning or late in the evening without stress with the neighborhood.
In addition to the advantage of energy recovery, the electric axle is an important step towards automated parking of trailers at the depot of a freight forwarder. The newly added drive on the axle allows the trailer to manoeuvre in the depot without a tractor. Remote-controlled electric driving on non-public areas such as freight forwarding yards or in ports is also possible. Until now, truck drivers have either to do it themselves or they need special trailer shunting vehicles. However, the electric motor turns the trailer itself into a vehicle that can cover short distances. This makes automated parking for goods trailers possible with additional sensors on the trailer and especially on the company premises.
The supplier offers this technology for new trailers as well as for retrofitting existing trailers. The company sees a large market for this: in Europe alone, around 250,000 trailers with a permissible total weight of more than 10 tons are newly registered every year. One in five of them is equipped with a cooling unit.
Unlike many other commercial vehicle projects, Bosch engineers rely on car components for the electrified axle. The electric motor SMG180, for example, is already used in numerous hybrid and electric cars worldwide – including the StreetScooter of Deutsche Post. Unlike electric cars, the motors in the electrified axle only become active when they can harvest energy. This is the case, for example, when driving downhill or braking. As a result of this recuperation known from passenger cars, no more energy is lost, but is stored in a high-voltage battery. This current can then either supply the engines when starting off on the mountain or drive the trailer’s cooling unit and thus save a lot of fuel.
From Bosch’s point of view, this application has another advantage: since the electric motors are inactive for much of the time and recuperate only a few seconds or minutes per hour or help the vehicle to start up or uphill, it can be used on trailers with significantly cheaper and series-proven passenger car components. The engines are nevertheless powerful enough to move the trailer or to provide start-up support for construction vehicles.
The setup kit for the trailer drive consists of the inverter, the associated control unit (VCU) and the separate engine generator (SMG). The latter is available as a complete electric motor for mounting or as individual components rotor, stator and resolver for integration into the axis. In addition, a battery system is needed that can buffer the energy.
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