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 on the image to see more high-res images of the hybrid helper concept

Have you ever witnessed a semi truck belching black smoke from its exhaust stacks as it struggles to maintain speed up a steep grade? If so, you've likely also witnessed the circus that ensues on the way back down the other side, as the truck picks up huge amounts of speed and momentum. This seems like the perfect situation to implement regenerative braking, and indeed, conceptual designs are being worked up for this exact scenario. The remote hybrid helper (RHH) would be used in hilly areas by semi trucks carrying heavy loads. The RHH attaches to the rear-most trailer and uses electric motors to push the truck uphill, then recaptures energy on the way back down.

Alternatively, the RHH could be used in heavy shipping lanes and ports, places where pollution is accumulating quickly. An opposing idea would be to integrate a similar system directly into the trailer chassis, eliminating the need for an additional hook-up but forcing the truck to haul heavy batteries on long, flat sections. With a bit more research and development, this could potentially be a winning concept.


[Source: The Greener Grass]

Eaton Corporation has confirmed that Coca-Cola Enterprises has placed the largest single order to date for trucks using the company's hybrid system. Coca-Cola will be purchasing 120 of the hybrid trucks to add to the 20 that they bought last year. Eaton and Coca-Cola have been working together to test the hybrid trucks since 2003. The vehicles in use so far have achieved a thirty-two percent reduction in emissions and thirty-seven percent drop in fuel consumption. Eaton's system is a full parallel hybrid system with regenerative braking capability. The Eaton system also provides electrical power take off capabilities for applications where off-board electrical equipment needs power.

[Source: Eaton]

Corporate Express has announced that it will be one of the first U.S. companies to test an Isuzu hybrid delivery truck for its operations. The model will be a current Isuzu truck in which Enova Systems will retrofit their HybridPower drive system. The truck is expected to be completed in April 2008 and will be used in Los Angeles, CA.

The HybridPower system is described as a turnkey system that combines an enhanced electric motor and electronic controls to help power the vehicle, but there's no mention of the batteries. Enova has worked on lithium systems. Isuzu has currently other hybrid programs, including a large-scale commercial program in its homeland, Japan.

[Source: Corporate Express and Isuzu]

Transit buses, school buses and local delivery trucks and vans would seem to be a natural application for hybrid drive-train technology, and they are. The short-range, start and stop duty cycle is able to take maximum advantage of the regenerative braking to boost fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. So why is it that the number of hybrid school buses or parcel delivery trucks in the US remains mired in the dozens or low hundreds? Even hybrid transit buses only number in the low thousands.

It all comes down to cost. Aside from the transit buses, most of the other hybrids have been essentially hand built so far, a process that costs a fortune. Even the buses have much lower production volumes than hybrid passenger vehicles. That means little or no economies of scale. Since fleet operators have tight budgets, until the up-front costs come closer to the price of conventional models, the savings in operating costs won't be enough to justify the purchase. Meanwhile manufacturers are reluctant to tool up for mass production unless there is a known market. So we have the chicken and egg conundrum. Without some kind of tax incentives for fleet operators to make the switch, we are unlikely to see a big increase in the numbers of heavy-duty hybrids anytime soon.

[Source: Drive.com.au]

Navistar announced last week that its subsidy, the International Truck and Engine Corporation, has become the first company to enter line production of hybrid commercial trucks. The truck in question is the mid-sized International DuraStar Hybrid and Navistar says that the diesel-hybrid powertrain will "provide dramatic fuel savings from 30-40 percent on a standard in-city pickup and delivery applications. The fuel efficiency can increase to more than 60 percent in utility-type applications when the engine can be shut off, but electric power still operates the vehicle." Of course, when the truck's equipment is powered by the battery, there are no emissions. As readers may remember, finding ways to reduce emissions form idling trucks is a pretty big challenge. There was the nine-year-old girl's $140,000 anti-idling ad campaign and groups are finding ways to save billions of gallons of fuel at the nation's airports by, in part, using anti-idling technology. With the amount of semis cruising America's highways and the amount of fuel they use, decreases of 30-60 percent are huge.

The International Truck and Engine Corporation built and tested 24 hybrid units and, according to the company saw "overwhelmingly positive results." Check out more details after the jump.

Related:

• Judge to Ford and Navistar: You can work it out
• Wal-Mart gets ready to reduce emissions, waste and operating costs

[Source: Navistar, thanks to Autoblog tipster SH]

Renault Trucks has designed a new "innovative, urban, hybrid technology concept vehicle." I think this truck simply must have been named with an eye towards the Google age, to be the first result in an internet search. How else to explain the name "Hybrys"?

Anyway, the Hybrys is a parallel diesel hybrid concept truck designed for refuse collection. It would be powered by a DXi7, 320 hp engine, an Optidriver+ robotized gearbox and an MDS (Motor Drive System) electric motor. While the press release doesn't mention idling, it seems like there's a lot of potential to seriously reduce emissions while the truck is standing still thanks to a feature of a key-less start that can power up "the wholly-electric power system before the diesel engine takes over." The system does offer "very much lower fuel consumption."

Renault's press release also talks about the marque's natural gas trucks and the potential to use B30 in a truck like this. Renault will display the Hybrys at the 29e Salon du transport routier d'Amsterdam later this month. There's another image of the trash truck of the future after the jump.

[Source: Renault, h/t to Domenick]