ETI’s Chief Technical Officer Chris Thorne presented “Heavy Duty Vehicles: Efficiency Opportunity, Options, Demonstration and Barriers” at the Low Carbon Vehicles (LCV) conference in 2016HDVs represent an opportunity to cost effectively decarbonise the UK energy system across a range of abatement and cost levelsIn the first instance, the ETI’s efficiency projects have shown that a 30% reduction in fuel efficiency across the UK fleet can be achieved with reasonable payback periodsProperly sourced and managed natural gas when coupled to a low methane slip powertrain can provide further CO2(equivalent) benefitsAs the UK transitions to a very low CO2 energy system (circa 2040 to 2050), further ‘carbon priced’ HDV options could become attractiveThe marginal carbon price will be a function ofthe other technologies deployed in the energy system (e.g. CCS versus no CCS), but thresholds can be set using the ETI’s ESME toolBarriers exist in the uptake of fuel efficiency technologies and new tools, techniques and policies are required to overcome them –a subject for future work