UPS is First in Delivery Industry to Test Hydraulic Hybrid Vehicles: 50% Better Fuel Economy and 40% Lower Emissions
In partnership with the US Environmental Protection Agency, UPS will begin testing a small fleet of hydraulic hybrid delivery trucks in the United States. The new vehicles can achieve 50-70% better fuel economy, a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and pay for their extra expense in less than 3 years.
UPS will field two hydraulic hybrids in Minneapolis, MN, in early 2009 and an additional five hydraulic hybrid trucks will be deployed later in 2009 and early 2010. Although this sounds like a tiny fleet, keep in mind that this is the largest scale commercial test of hydraulic hybrids ever conducted.
The UPS hybrid hydraulic truck is a standard-looking 24,000 pound package car, with an EPA-patented diesel series hydraulic hybrid drive attached to the rear axle.
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In a series hydraulic hybrid, the conventional drivetrain is replaced with a hydraulic system that stores energy by compressing gas in a chamber using hydraulic fluid. It works in much the same way that a hybrid electric car does — a small, efficient motor generates power which gets stored for later use — only, the way energy is stored in a hydraulic hybrid is in a pressurized chamber rather than in a battery.
The hydraulic hybrid drivetrain eliminates the need for a conventional transmission and increases fuel economy in three ways:
- A large amount of the energy that is otherwise wasted in braking can be recovered to pressurize the hydraulic fluid.
- The engine operates much more efficiently — similar to a hybrid electric car, only without the bulky batteries
- The engine can easily be shut off and instantaneously restarted during regular driving — such as when the vehicle is slowing down or stopped at a light.
UPS has been developing what it calls its “green fleet” over the last several years and currently has more than 1,600 low carbon emissions vehicles including electric, hybrid-electric, compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, and propane trucks.
Although this is a small step, I applaud UPS for testing the waters. Hopefully others will join in quickly.
Source: UPS press release
Image Credit: UPS
I also picked up on this technology a couple of years back. If I recall correctly, the original technology was developed at the EPA itself, and then passed on to Eaton, which is why these two are still involved as shown in the UPS article.
It’s exciting stuff, and I hope it moves ahead.
“I wonder if it would be cost effective to heat the compressed nitrogen to increase its pressure and work it can do, maybe using the exhaust gas from the ic engine?”
That’s a good idea to heat with the exhaust. It would be a good way to recapture some of the wasted heat energy.
this is awesome as these trucks are ideally sized for adding on hybrid technologies
Something here doesn’t quite add up. The size and weight of a high pressure accumulator needed to store signficant amounts of energy in compressed gas would be comparable to “bulky batteries”.
So the accumulator can be little more than a start assist device that captures kinetic energy during braking. The overall efficiency could only be improved by 50% if the the vehicle is *continuously* starting and stopping. Hydraulic power transmission isn’t particulary efficient otherwise.
More technical details would be useful.
Why not use carbon dioxide in air chamber and liquid carbon dioxide in hydraulic fluid line? Use CO2 that would otherwise be allowed to escape into atmosphere from natural-gas wells. As gaseous C02 is compressed it liquefies thus storing more energy than compressed nitrogen thus allowing use of lighter mechanism for same storage thus better power/weight ratio thus improved fuel mileage. Greenhouse gas would be contained inside truck rather than released into upper atmosphere.
I hope these lame measures to combat fictitious global warming don’t raise the cost of my packages.
According to John Kargul, Director of Energy Transfer for the EPA office of Transportation and Air Quality, each accumulator tank on the prototype truck on display in Atlanta on Monday (high and low pressure) holds 44 gal each. 1/2 of which is nitrogen and the other half is common transmission fluid. Nitrogen is indeed the “spring”, as Kargul described it, in the system storing and releasing the potential energy. I’ve posted a video and graphic from UPS on the system on TriplePundit.com (www.triplepundit.com/pages/around-the-block-in-the-first–003672.php) and for more in-depth info:
http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/ups-delivers-a-message-with-hh-003676.php (3P carried the live web feed from Atlanta and I was fortunate to be there to talk with the principals.)
nice
A bit more about the announcement. Im from UPS:
1) We are actually purchasing these vehicles. We’ve been testing them for the last 18 months. 2) the manufacturers are Eaton and Navistar. If you want to see some video and the press release, go to http://www.pressroom.ups.com
The hybrid truck looks awesome and green color is simply looking great.