It's not often that a Hummer is pictured here on AutoblogGreen but this particular brute, owned by hydraulic hose and belt supplier Gates, is being converted to a hydraulic hybrid using a system developed by Hybra-Drive. We introduced them to you in '07 and now that they're making some news, we wanted to bring them back. Their set-up, you'll remember, uses a conventional engine to pressurize a hydraulic system to send power to the wheels which is said by the company to reduce fuel consumption by more than half and reduce emissions as much as 90 percent.

It seems this small Deerfield, MI business has been chosen over some of the more established firms like Eaton to "negotiate with the Parcel Delivery Working Group of the Hybrid Truck Users Forum (HTUF) in Pasadena, Calif. for validation and testing of hybrid hydraulic power on parcel delivery vehicles," according to the Great Lakes IT report on WWJ Newsradio 950. HTUF is a branch of Calstart that, through forums and working groups, works to help commercialize hybrid designs for trucks. So maybe we'll be seeing hydraulic hybrid systems used in vehicles besides the Peterbilt garbage truck at some point in the future.

[Source: WWJ Radio]

At the Transportation Planning Session panel on Friday morning, the Santa Monica Alt Car Expo gave space for a variety of speakers to expound on the broad challenges confronting transportation planners in the region. While the discussion focuses on how LA can improve, there are a lot of areas in the world that face similar problems, so I thought this would be of interest to quite a few readers.

The panelists included Mary Nichols, chairperson of the California Air Resources Board; Pam O'Connor chairperson of Metro; Mark Pisano, executive director of SCAG; John Boesel, executive director of WestStart/CalStart; Stephanie Negriff from Big Blue Bus; Barry Wallerstein from AQMD; and assemblymember Lloyd Levine. The event was moderated by Craig Perkins, director of environmental and public works for the City of Santa Monica.

In the MP3 file of the talk, I've included each speaker's answer to the "one wish" question (i.e., if you had one wish, how would you fix the transportation here?). It was announced that rest of the presentation will be posted online (I'm not sure where, possibly on the AltCar site), and there should be video up at theautochannel.com. Unlike the other panels, this one did not use amplified sound, so I thank you in advance for putting up with the only OK recording quality. Give it a listen (22 min).

There are over 300,000 flex-fuel cars in California, yet just one E85 fueling station. Doesn't make much sense, does it? Moving to address the imbalance, the Department of Energy has granted funding to a group that includes CALSTART, GM, Pacific Ethanol and United Oil among others to begin the construction of an ethanol infrastructure in the Golden State.

The press release doesn't reveal how much funding is available, however, the initial round will pay for a portion of the construction of ten E85 pumps at existing gas stations owned by United Oil in the Los Angeles area. Four more pumps will be installed along Highway 101 from Ventura to San Luis Obispo while the last will be installed in San Joaquin Valley.

Fuel for the pumps will be produced in California by Pacific Ethanol whose headquarters are located in Madera, CA. There are currently three ethanol plants in the state with four more on the way. By the end of 2008, California's ethanol production is projected to reach 400 million gallons per year which should provide enough ethanol to meet demand from the new E85 pumps.

Getting a foothold in California is a smart move for almost any aspect of the auto industry as the state contains 10 percent of the nation's vehicles. We'll certainly be keeping a close watch to see just how the ethanol network pans out in a coastal state.

[Source: CALSTART]