Addvantage USA Ltd, based in Los Angeles, has reached its $650,000 crowdfunding target, giving it the green light to roll-out technology to reduce the 16 million metric tonnes of Nitrous Oxide produced by the US transportation sector annually.
Daniel Mitchell, co-founder and CEO of the company, says the technology, which has already been proven in Europe, can help American haulage companies reduce the diesel consumption of their vehicles by up to 17.6% and reduce NOx emissions by up to 83%. Mitchell is a former Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and his last company was part of the Virgin Fast Track 100.
The company’s technology can be retrofitted to vehicles in just four hours. It has been over ten years in development, and after rigorous testing and accreditation, fleets in Europe have proven Addvantage works in real-world testing and are now rolling out Addvantage to their entire fleets.
“Achieving the investment as quickly as we have is very encouraging,” explains Mitchell, who leads an experienced team with a record of starting, growing and selling businesses. "With ever tighter margins and diesel representing around 40% of a fleet’s overall costs, we are confident that this proven, patented technology provides compelling economic and environmental arguments for US fleets."
A precise amount of LPG (propane) is injected into the intake air to create a mix of air and LPG. Its job is to enhance combustion. This improves efficiency of the burn, delivering the increase in fuel-efficiency. Addvantage uses telemetry data from the truck’s own electronic controls to calculate the exact amount of LPG to inject for each revolution.
It claims, for example, that a company with a fleet of 500 trucks driving 100,000 miles per annum per truck at an average of 6.5mpg could see a net saving of around $1.6m per annum. And there are approximately 4 million Class 8 heavy-duty vehicles operating in the US now.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency more than 325 million metric tonnes of NOx (Nitrous Oxides) is produced by US, 5% of that from transportation with heavy-duty on-road vehicles accounting for 70% of all freight transport and 20% of transportation-sector greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States. The impact of 1 pound of NOx on warming the atmosphere is almost 300 times that of 1 pound of carbon dioxide. The US currently produces around 10% of the world’s NOx emissions. NOx is a highly potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential of 310 times that of CO2.
UK customers are also now planning to install Addvantage across their fleets following successful trials. MJD Group have reported an average 15% improvement in MPG, while Wells Farm Dairies saw a 20% reduction in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.
The company’s figures have been verified by Emissions Analytics Ltd, an independent global testing and data specialist for the scientific measurement of real-world emissions and fuel efficiency for passenger and commercial vehicles and non-road mobile machinery.
