Wal-Mart with ArvinMeritor to Develop Hybrid Truck

January 14, 2007 – Vol.11 No.43

WAL-MART WITH ARVINMERITOR TO DEVELOP HYBRID HEAVY DUTY TRUCK PROTOTYPE.

The biggest, commercially-available hybrid road worthy vehicles are city buses. And they’re commercially-successful too. Transit agencies in the US have been buying them by the hundreds to cut fuel budgets while cleaning the air.

The stop-and-go driving of transit buses is a perfect match with hybrid technology. Each time a hybrid bus slows, some of that energy is recaptured in the vehicle’s batteries ready for the next time it needs power for acceleration.

Long distance trucks could use power stored in batteries in a similar way.

As any driver on the nation’s interstates must notice, tractor trailers struggle to make it to the top of a long hill, then careen down the other side to build up enough speed to make it part way up the next.

This is where hybrids could help out. The downhill roll could be recharging batteries creating a power reserve ready for the uphill run. The result? Energy saved in the batteries would mean less diesel fuel needed to climb the next long hill.

Hybrid electric diesel, class 8 trucks aren’t yet available from truck manufacturers, but the already green-leaning company Wal-Mart, and its trucking division,Wal-Mart Transportation, wants them. The company has already announced it would like to double its fuel economy on its fleet of trucks in ten years. Hybrids could do the trick.

Since the company can’t buy them the only solution is to develop the trucks themselves. To do so, the company has signed into a partnership with ArvinMeritor to build a prototype.

The companies believe they’ll have first dual-mode diesel-electric tractor prototype in development in North America. (Volvo and others have been building prototypes of other types of large trucks.) The truck will be based on an International Class 8 ProStar tractor and powered by an engine developed by Cummins Inc. For its part ArvinMeritor will provide nearly all the hybrid technology with the exception of the battery pack.

The dual mode system provides for low-speed torque to move the truck from rest, and a high speed mode for electric assist in hill climbing or passing slower vehicles - truckers that haven’t bought hybrid rigs. Visit ArvinMeritor at http://www.arvinmeritor.com