hybrid trucks aimed at nation’s distribution industry

• August
• 31

11:59 pm Trucks

A medium-duty truck running on a hybrid diesel-electric engine that could save distribution and utility companies plenty of expensive fuel and be easier on the planet, too.

Like the increasingly popular hybrid cars, these vehicles come with an electric motor that assists the main engine during acceleration and can capture the energy produced from braking, storing it in a battery for later use.

Medium-duty trucks are the backbone of the distribution industry. They are used, mostly in city traffic, to deliver anything from furniture to beer.

Hybrids are ideally suited for such delivery fleets, because stop-and-go driving allows the electric motor to operate and recharge its batteries more frequently.Hybrid motors can also vastly reduce the fuel consumption of trucks with accessories that rely on the engine for power.

An aerial truck equipped with a lift, such as those used by utilities to maintain power lines, can burn 2 gallons of diesel per hour while the engine idles, spewing pollution and noise, said Steve Van Sickle, assistant equipment supervisor with the King County Department of Transportation.

But the hybrid truck the department has been trying for the past six months can power its equipment with the electric motor. What’s more, “it eliminates a lot of noise,” making it good for work in residential areas.

Businesses, particularly those with distribution fleets, are feeling the pinch of rising fuel prices — especially since the cost of diesel, which powers most U.S. trucks, has outpaced the cost of gasoline. Diesel recently topped $5 per gallon in some Seattle area stations.

Commercial pick up trucks use 14 billion gallons of gasoline and 23 billion gallons of diesel annually, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. The high cost of transporting goods gets passed on to consumers in the form of more expensive merchandise.

The trucking fleet’s environmental cost is also large. Freight trucks accounted for 19 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions by the U.S. transportation sector, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Light-duty trucks, a category that includes SUVs, accounted for an additional 28 percent.