The ORCA project aims to design clean, efficient, and green plug-in hybrid heavy-duty vehicles that are cost-competitive within the market: an IVECO Multi Modular hybrid passenger bus and a VOLVO distribution truck.

Cost-wise, the aim is to have the lifetime cost of the ORCA vehicles lower than conventional vehicles using the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) methodology. On the other hand, the project also intends to make those vehicles greener, to reduce 40% of the CO2 emission than conventional ones. To determine the environmental impacts, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method was used.

Based on the Co-design Optimization Framework developed earlier in ORCA, fuel consumption, emissions, electric energy consumption, component cost, component sizes of vehicle powertrain have been used for the TCO and LCA methods to assess the economic and environmental performance of ORCA vehicles.

Results showed that the ORCA vehicles perform better than the diesel counterparts from the TCO perspective.

Regarding the environmental impacts, due to the high fuel efficiency, both the ORCA bus and truck performed better than a standard diesel bus/truck.

It was also concluded that for the year 2030, ORCA bus can reduce the price premium compared to the conventional hybrid, approximately in line with the reduction target.