UPS, a company which already has twenty-five hybrid diesel electric commercial vehicles in operation, is expanding its fleet of green vehicles by ordering an additional two-hundred hybrid electric vehicles and three-hundred compressed natural gas vehicles from Daimler's Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation (FCCC). This order will more than double Daimler's active fleet of commercial hybrids, as the German company currently has over one-hundred-sixty in service. We wonder if the two-million miles of reliable service that FedEx was able to achieve from its hybrid trucks was enough to persuade UPS into making this large order. The FCCC truck is powered by a diesel engine along with an electric motor. While the forty percent improvement in fuel mileage from this setup likely makes the most important difference to UPS, we can also thank the vehicles for their ninety percent reduction in emissions. Therefore, UPS estimates a savings of 176,000 gallons of fuel annually along with 1.786 tons of CO₂ emissions from its two-hundred new hybrid trucks. Apparently, brown can also be green.

Click image for small photo gallery of the new UPS HEV truck

What can brown do for you? It can be more environmentally responsible when its trucks roll up to your doorstep to deliver that Rockford Files Season 2 box set you've been anxiously awaiting. The package delivery company has just added 50 brand-new HEV delivery trucks to its fleet. Coming in two sizes from either Workhorse Custom Chassis or Freightliner, the new trucks will look just like the other big brown vans, but graphics on the bodywork will clearly identify them as being hybrid electric vehicles.

The hybrid system comes from Eaton, and it combines a downsized clean diesel engine, a Lithium Ion battery pack and an electric motor/generator to increase the new trucks fuel economy by a whopping 44 percent over a traditional diesel-powered van. UPS also states that the 50 new trucks could help eliminate 457 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the course of the year. If you're in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston or Phoenix, you have a shot at seeing one of the vans, as that's where they've been put into service. UPS is not shy about testing alternative-fuel vehicles in its fleet. Last year the company made headlines when it put a hydraulic hybrid delivery truck into service.

[Source: UPS]