Ricardo Wins Contract to Optimize Fuel Economy and Performance for Military Ground Vehicles

31 October 2008

Ricardo has won a multi-million dollar contract to identify the best combinations of technologies for achieving the highest possible fuel efficiency for US military ground vehicles.

The project is part of the Fuel Efficient Ground Vehicle Demonstrator (FED) program launched by TARDEC, the US Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center in Warren, Mich. The goal of the FED program is to develop and define military vehicle technologies that will reduce fuel consumption on the battlefield and reduce the military’s dependence on oil. The program ultimately will result in a Humvee-size demonstration vehicle that achieves significantly greater fuel economy while maintaining tactical capability and performance.

Ricardo will apply its TVFE (Total Vehicle Fuel Economy) system to evaluate combinations of current and emerging technologies to define vehicle configurations that will reduce fuel consumption while maintaining vehicle performance.

For the first phase of the project, Ricardo will apply its TVFE modeling and simulation capabilities to predict the performance of various combinations of current and emerging technologies for the entire vehicle, including conventional and hybrid drive systems, transmissions, suspension systems, body configurations and other vehicle systems. TVFE focuses on integrating all vehicle systems to optimize fuel economy and performance. Ricardo expects to deliver the first set of proposed vehicle configurations within nine months.