UPS test Hydraulic Hybrid truck expected to achieve 60% - 70% fuel efficiency improvement -urban use

[Bill USA]

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/punishing_success_at_the_epa/">A little known corps of engineers creates environmental innovations on an increasingly dwindling budget.



...This new UPS truck, designed and built by engineers working for the EPA’s Clean Automotive Technology program in Ann Arbor, Michigan, runs on a combination of combustion engine and hydraulic pumps.

The concept is surprisingly simple: When you step on the gas, the diesel engine drives hydraulic pumps that power the wheels and charge hydraulic storage tanks. When you let up on the gas, the engine shuts off completely and the hydraulic chambers engage to power the truck. There is no direct drive shaft from the engine to the wheels. When you brake, the forward momentum of the vehicle is converted to energy that is stored in the high-pressure hydraulic tanks, an efficiency concept reminiscent of hybrid electric cars that charge the car’s battery with the energy created by braking. That process, in (electric) hybrids , can recover about 20% of the car’s moving energy; in the hydraulic truck, an astounding 70% of the energy is recovered. For the stop/start use common to most UPS trucks, that translates to a 60% to 70% increase in fuel efficiency.



http://files.harc.edu/Projects/Transportation/HydraulicHybridsGray.pdf">hydraulic Hybrids - EPA presentation


Unfortunately, in the present Demolish Government climate this programs has been fighting for funding. By now it may have been cut so much as to be virtually dead.

[JohnWxy]

1. 2 to 3 yr payback!! That's what businesses will see! And little to no exotic materials needed.

very good news. I hope Obama doesn't give in to GOP efforts to kill off our future by defunding important programs which help industry explore new techologies and thereby accelerate their adoption.

[formercia]

2. The only negative thing I can think of is the noise

Hydraulic motors tend to be very noisy.

[JohnWxy]

4. "Driving around the assembled crowd, the hydraulic-powered UPS truck was as quiet as a golf cart"

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/punishing_success_at_the_epa/">"Driving around the assembled crowd, the hydraulic-powered UPS truck was as quiet as a golf cart"



http://articles.cnn.com/2008-10-28/tech/ups.hybrid.trucks_1_hybrid-trucks-hydraulic-hybrid-hydraulic-fluid?_s=PM:TECH

"At first the drivers thought the engine had stalled. It's so much quieter," said James Bryson, an EPA mechanical engineer who helped develop the hydraulic hybrid system at the agency's National Vehicle & Fuel Emissions Laboratory. "After they got used to it, they really liked it."

[Gregorian]

3. I don't buy it. Not the 20%, nor the complexity of the hydraulics.

Nor the percent impact on the planet, given the small number of vehicles.

That 20% figure doesn't represent regenerative braking gains from an electric vehicle. Someone show me where I'm wrong about this.

More claptrap to hang on an already polished turd is not the way forward.