"Road transport is the second largest EU producer of CO2, one of the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change. While some improvements in efficiency of road vehicles have been achieved, continued growth in traffic and congestion mean that CO2 emissions from road transport have grown overall. At the same time rising fuel prices and supply instability also give pressure for increased efficiency. The EC has set targets for the average CO2 emissions of new vehicles to be 120 g/km by 2012, with further reductions needed to achieve a 40% reduction in CO2 from light passenger vehicles by 2020. The EE-VERT project will develop technologies that will play a key part in achieving these goals. Despite improvements in individual areas of the modern vehicle such as powertrain, a considerable amount of energy is wasted due to the lack of an overall on-board energy management strategy. Further electrification of auxiliary systems (the ""more electric vehicle"") promises energy and efficiency gains, but there is a need for a co-ordinated and predictive approach to the generation, distribution and use of energy. In the state-of-the-art, power is generated with little knowledge of the actual loads, and some systems (both electrical and mechanical) consume power continually regardless of demand. The introduction of systems such as alternator set-point control and EPAS are first steps towards optimising energy use but such systems operate in isolation. This project will develop strategies in conventional vehicles, also applicable to hybrids, for overall energy management (thermal and electrical) to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. Also, the need for the strategies to guarantee power supply to safety-related systems will be considered. It is estimated that EE-VERT technologies can reduce CO2 emissions by around 10% for a car. For a large vehicle savings of around 40% of the CO2 that is created by an auxiliary system such as climate control is possible."