KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Eaton Corp. said this week that its medium-duty hybrid power systems are now commercially available and will be ready for customer deliveries in 2008 on the chassis of several major North American commercial vehicle manufacturers.

These OEMs include International Truck and Engine, Kenworth and Peterbilt, and Freightliner.

The announcement follows more than four years of development and 2 million miles of successful field-testing in North America, Europe and Asia.

According to Kevin Beaty, manager of Eaton’s Hybrid Power Systems business unit, the company plans to produce several hundred systems in 2007. Eaton is planning to ramp-up production capacity over the next three years in order to meet customer demand and achieve economies of scale.

More than 220 hybrid-powered vehicles with Eaton’s advanced technology systems have been produced to date for testing and evaluation — most of which have been placed into service alongside their conventionally-powered counterparts. Vehicle configurations include package delivery vans, medium-duty delivery trucks, beverage haulers, city buses and utility repair trucks — each of which has generated significant fuel economy gains and emission reductions.

The Eaton hybrid system recovers energy
lost during braking and stores it for power.

Fleet customers for Eaton hybrid power have so far included FedEx Express, UPS, Coca-Cola Enterprises, The Pepsi Bottling Group and 14 public utility fleets into which were placed 24 hybrid-powered repair trucks.

Eaton hybrid power systems in these and other applications are generating fuel economy improvements of up to 60 percent and significant reductions in harmful emissions, the company says.

“Financial incentives at the local, state and national level will help encourage early adoption,” said Beaty. “Meanwhile, increased production volumes will help drive down the per-unit cost of the systems and empower the industry to offer a compelling value proposition that is sustainable.”

Beaty added that Eaton is looking forward to significant government-related purchases of hybrid-powered trucks for its fleet operations, noting that many of these same government agencies are also offering the purchase incentives.

In the hybrid systems being released into production, Eaton employs a parallel-type diesel-electric hybrid architecture with Eaton’s Fuller UltraShift automated transmission. It incorporates an electric motor/generator between the output of an automated clutch and input of the transmission.

The system recovers energy normally lost during braking and stores the energy in batteries. When electric torque is blended with engine torque, the stored energy is used to improve fuel economy and vehicle performance for a given speed or used to operate the vehicle with electric power only. The system can also be designed to provide energy for use during engine-off worksite operations, further reducing noise, emissions and fuel costs, Eaton says.

— Via Truckinginfo.com