An Iveco Stralis running on compressed natural gas (CNG) has been present at the first edition of AUTOECO, a motor show held in Turin last week which was dedicated entirely to environment-friendly vehicles. The Iveco Stralis was visible in the Centro Ricerche Fiat (Fiat Research Centre), where a complete range of vehicles adopting various types of alternative fuels (electricity, methane, multi-fuel) were on display.

The AUTOECO fair covered a space of 7 thousand square metres at the Oval, a structure run by "Expo 2000" and located in the area of the Lingotto factory. The show aimed to exhibit the most recent technological developments in environmentally sustainable transport. Iveco recently presented the new CNG Stralis, thus completing its range of CNG vehicles to satisfy the broadest variety of transport needs. These include: Daily (3.5-6.5 tons), Eurocargo (12-16 tons) and Stralis (18-26 tons), with HP from 106 to 272.

CNG Stralis vehicles come with Cursor 8 CNG engines with 7.8 litre displacement. The environmental performance of Iveco CNG engines exceeds European standards for Enhanced Environmentally Friendly Vehicles (EEV) as per Directive 2005/55/EC. Cursor 8 CNG engines are in service on more than 3,500 urban and interurban busses worldwide and more than 1,000 garbage collection trucks in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Last spring, the Madrid-based waste management contractor expanded its fleet (which now includes 675 CNG trucks) by adopting the Stralis CNG.
 

Stralis CNG's main characteristics are: The Stralis CNG ranges from 18 to 26 tonnes with two- and three-axle, 4x2 and 6x2x4 configurations, the latter with a trailing steering axle equipped with pneumatic suspension. This version is ideal for urban uses and comes with the new Allison 3200 automatic gearbox with hydraulic torque converter, 6 speeds and integrated retarder.

Cursor 8 CNG technology details: The Cursor 8 CNG is a gas-run engine with the following features: Otto cycle, 6 cylinders, 24 valves, overhead camshaft, ultra-low exhaust emissions, with stoichiometric combustion system and multi-point electronic injection with 12 gas injectors in two by two format at the entrance to the inlet duct of each cylinder. Following standard Iveco procedures, a lambda probe is inserted into the closed-loop combustion system so as to guarantee that the stoichiometric combustion is not influenced by the composition of the natural gasses. The exhaust pipe is equipped with a three-way platinum and palladium catalyst to reduce the concentration of CO, HC and NOx pollutants to ultra-low levels.