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]

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Stop. Pick-up. Go. Repeat. This is the routine your sanitation and recycling trucks follow as they go about their daily rounds, relieving us of the astonishing amount of junk we all manage to accumulate in a week's time. This eats up fuel in traditionally-powered vehicles. Peterbilt might have a solution on display at the Waste Expo 2008 in Chicago (Waste Expo? Who knew?). The Model 320 HLA is equipped with Eaton's Hydraulic Launch Assist, which captures braking energy and stores it as pressurized hydraulic fluid. That fluid is then used to help propel the truck when the driver gets it back underway. UPS is currently piloting a delivery van equipped with the same technology.

Peterbilt has not released any specific numbers, but states that the reductions in emissions and fuel consumption observed during the Model 320's testing are significant, and that as a bonus, the system should help reduce brake-related maintenance costs as well. Because garbage trucks start and stop so frequently, this might be the most natural application of hydraulic launch assist yet. Fuel sure isn't getting any cheaper, so it'll be interesting to see whether the technology catches on in the sanitation biz.

[Source: Peterbilt via Truck News]

Many modern vehicles already use hydraulic power for certain functions, namely power steering and brakes. Companies such as UPS, though, see potential in using hydraulic systems as part of a hybrid drivetrain. While nobody is expecting a hybrid hydraulic system to be able to store enough energy to achieve miles-upon-miles of driving distance, the frequent stopping and restarting of some vehicles - delivery trucks, to name just one obvious example - make them excellent candidates for possible hydraulic technology.

Pump on over to Number 7.

Hydraulic hybrids have been on the drawing boards for a few years now, with company's such as FedEx and UPS testing systems as we speak. Even Ford has dabbled in hydraulic technology for their line of mainstream F-Series trucks. One benefit to using hydraulics as opposed to electric hybrids is that more energy can potentially be recaptured when braking, which is then re-used to start the vehicle moving forward again. This idea is put to good use in this concept as well, which was created in just five days by students all over the world. Although the design exists only on the computer, we can admire the engineering ideas which went into it. Using a 600cc motorcycle unit from Honda, the gas-powered engine powers a hydraulic pump which provides power to not only all four wheels but also the power steering pump. In addition to being all-wheel-drive, the machine also features four-wheel-steering, so that steering pump works overtime.

Projects such as this one prove that there are more ideas than time and money when it comes to designing a better mouse-trap hybrid car. The real problem lies in finding the funding to make something like this design become a reality. Nobody will ever really know how well this system could work if it sits still on the hard disk of a computer.

[Source: The Kneeslider]

At the SAE World Congress, FEV is displaying a number of vehicles that they have contributed to recently including a diesel powered version of the new Chrysler Sebring and the Lincoln MKR concept. Perhaps the most interesting vehicle is a large brown UPS delivery van. This is no ordinary UPS truck though. This one has a series hybrid drivetrain, but even that is different. Unlike the Chevy Volt or the Ford Airstream/HySeries Edge, this van has no batteries for energy storage or electric motors. Instead this one has a hydraulic hybrid system.

Continue reading after the jump.

A diesel-hydraulic passenger car that gets 80 mpg? A hybrid garbage truck? These are two vehicles built and tested by the EPA in recent years, and it is finally time for one of their prototypes to make it to the streets. The first will be the garbage truck, which is 30 percent more fuel efficient. The hydraulic-hybrid-transmission system will be made and sold by Eaton Corp. and will be installed in garbage trucks by Peterbilt. Peterbilt has already begun trying to line up sales of the trucks and said that Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles have indicated the greatest interest among American cities, according to the Wall Street Journal. Other possible buyers include the Chinese government, which may use the technology in a fleet of hydraulic-hybrid buses during the 2008 Olympics. The WSJ article shows how the EPA's test department's work is finally paying off in the real world as high gas prices and high consumer interest in green technologies have finally convinced automakers to give different power systems a chance.

[Source: Wall Street Journal]