CruisiO

Fossil fuels have been around for a long time, fulfilling a majority of the Earth’s primary energy demand. The amount of carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion alone amounts to 33 billion tons globally every year making climate change a serious concern. Opting for a greener energy source to reduce the global carbon footprint, automotive companies have gradually begun moving away from carbon-based fossil fuels through the production of electric vehicles. Even so, over five trillion dollars are being spent every year on fossil fuel subsidies globally and the reality is that a fully electric future is an estimated 40 to 50 years away. In the interim, we are left with an alarming amount of carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion globally. “That is where CruisiO’s Pulsed Cruise Technology fits - in this space between the present, the fully electric future, and what we will do as a species to reduce our carbon impact,” says Dr. Jeffrey Yu, Founder of CruisiO, a cleantech firm. The technology is inspired by nature, which uses momentum in combination with pulsed drive systems to create increased efficiency to travel further.

The Answer Lay in Nature

During a ride on the Autobahn in Germany, Dr. Yu had an idea that sparked the beginnings of CruisiO. With the need for a solution to tackle the global fuel consumption usage in the back of his mind, Dr. Yu observed that in nature, animals have very limited energy carrying capacity. Like the flapping movement of a bird’s wings or the beating of a human heart, drive systems in nature generally do not run continuously but pulse instead. Likewise, in traditional hypermiling,when he sped up to 90 miles per hour (mph) on the freeway and then coasted down to 60 mph, Dr. Yu was surprised to discover that it actually generated significant fuel savings compared to maintaining a constant speed of 65 mph the entire time.
Knowing that engines are more efficient at higher RPMs, CruisiO’s founder applied these principles into designing CruisiO’s patented Pulsed Cruise Technology that can be used to make engines of all kinds more efficient.

Tried and tested, CruisiO’s technology yields between three and twenty percent fuel savings without affecting a driver’s experience during their journey. “CruisiO provides an active, fuel-saving, and emissions-reducing technology that we can easily retrofit fleets with,” says Ani Martirosian, CruisiO’s Chief Marketing Officer. While their sweet spot is in long-haul trucking, the technology also applies to automobiles, buses, ships, and generators. With close to a hundred thousand dollars a year per truck being spent on fuel in the U.S., the trucking industry would benefit substantially from fuel efficiency gains through this innovative technology.

CruisiO is retrofitting existing vehicles, and all data from those vehicles is being streamed to the cloud. The company is constructing an attractive data visualization platform that allows customers to have immediate visibility to the triple bottom line – their people, their impact on the planet, and profitability on a per driver basis. “The data and insights from this platform can drive additional savings and deliver added value because fleet operators will be able to see how each driver’s behaviour impacts the environment and their profitability, and can incentivize drivers accordingly using this data,” says Martirosian.

Fuel Efficiency in Every Scenario

Even in unfavorable scenarios, CruisiO has been able to yield excellent results with its patented Pulsed Cruise Technology, as evidenced by their 18-month pilot on the East Coast with class 8 short-haul trucks. Compared to CruisiO’s ideal scenario of high speed, heavy load, long-distance trips that yield the best results, this was a less-than-ideal scenario given the amount of stop-and-go traffic in mountainous areas. Despite these circumstances, CruisiO continued to demonstrate three and a half percent fuel savings on average throughout the pilot and 11 percent fuel savings on the longest haul routes.

With the trucking space covered, CruisiO sees the maritime industry as another long-term impact area as ships don’t possess the necessary battery storage capacity for long-haul voyages. In a pilot that they carried out with the US Marine Corps, CruisiO was able to demonstrate a seven percent fuel savings on diesel electric generators with no reduction in electrical output. The company anticipates expanding their technology into the shipping and diesel-electric generator markets.

CruisiO is currently in discussions with OEMs as well as companies in the oil and gas industry on utilizing their technology. The company is also actively looking for opportunities to pilot their technology with full battery electric vehicle companies.