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HI GH HOPES

FOR 11111311

Diesel engines are becoming cleaner and cleaner; now the green spotlight is shifting onto hybrid trucks using a range of alternative

fuels. Oliver Dixon

wonders if hybrids are the way forward or another blind alley.

AH...THE HYBRID. It will save us all, you know. A couple of tweaks here and there, and before you know it, the environment will be saved, reliance upon foreign oil will be eliminated, and a Brave New World will have begun.

There will be a downside, of course: the pub bore will have to restrict his diatribes to house prices because high fuel prices will be consigned to history.And,in keeping with the spirit of the age, one supposes that we'll all have to dress and speak as if we were extras in an episode of The Jetsons.

Still, a small price to pay for the continuance of humanity's dream.

There is a whole conspiracy of 11's going on here. If it isn't hybrids that are lighting the fires of eternal optimism, it's mention of the hydrogen economy. Hybrids, hydrogen, hereinafter humans will be happy, and we can move on to the next burning issue.

Over the past few years there has been a lot of excitement about the hybridisation of the commercial vehicle. And, on paper at any rate, this is entirely understandable.

Early application

Let's take a breath here and look at some history.There are plenty of conspiracy theories surrounding the suppression of hybrids — check out the 1974 US Federal Clean Car Incentive Program and the work of Victor Wouk and Charlie Rosen.

But for our purposes, hybrid heavy trucks began in 2001 with Oshkosh's application of its ProPulse Electric Drive Technology into a military vehicle. Since then. Paccar has been active in the genre, with all three of its brands — Peterbilt, Kenworth and Daf — offering or talking about offering hybrid vehicles.

Volvo has also got in on the act, with the recent launch of its I-SAM technology; in Japan, both Fuso and Hino have hybrid products on the market. Of the major component suppliers, Eaton Corporation is arguably the biggest noise in the business.

So what factors have been driving forward hybrid technology? Well,unless you are a resident of the White House, there is a good chance that you might have noticed some odd things going on with the weather of late. At CM we're not given to picking fights that we can't win, so when a man in a white coat with a doctorate involving the more esoteric bits of climatology tells us that this is partly due to a rise in CO, levels— in turn,partly due to increasing vehicle emissions — then we're not going to call him a fantasist.

Closely related to all this is the second factor, legislation. If there is a British city that isn't considering the implementation of a low-emission zone, it's not in our gazetteer. Certainty is in short supply in these troubled times, but you can bet your boots on higher environmental charges. We could call these taxes., but on the basis that the polluter pays, they are in fact an extra cost of doing business.

The smart businessman recognises that reducing costs equates to increasing profits when all else remains equal,so a cleaner mode of transport equals a lemon-fresh balance sheet. QED... until some bright spark in the Treasury imposes a hybrid or hydrogen tax, at which point we'll all head back to steam and coal as means of propulsion.

Public relations

The third factor driving forward hybrid technology is US corporate thinking.

Hybrids are good PR; witness a recent press release from the Pete Store Group.This is a Peterbilt dealership with outlets in Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, and it has just supplied what we believe to be the first Hybrid Class 8 tractor to go into full-time operation in the US.

Naturally, it has gone to Wal-Mart.which is keen to talk up its environmental credentials: -Wal-Mart is careful to consider the civic and environmental impact its operations have in the communities it serves around the world," says senior vice-president of transportation,Tim Yatsko."We are continually looking for new, innovative ways to improve the fuel economy and reduce the emissions of our fleet.

"We currently operate the Peterbilt Model 386, and we anticipate that the hybrid version will help us move toward our goal to increase our fleet efficiency by 25% over the next few years.

Clear message

Civic and environmental impact is one thing, fuel economy something very different.And yet it is impact rather than economy that lights Yatsko's fire. Granted, a 25% improvement in fleet efficiency is not to be sneezed at, but the message as far as the Great American Public is concerned is very clear. Wal-Mart is environmentally friendly, and this will no doubt be a source of comfort to its customers as they roll up en masse in sub-20mpg SUVs to buy unseasonal produce that has been airfreighted to a store near them.

Wal-Mart is an easy target. How about the rest of corporate America? Parcels firms UPS and FedEx are worth examining; not only do they run a fair number of vehicles, but they have been getting competitive in terms of trying to out-green one another.

In fairness, UPS is no stranger to experimentation when it comes to alternative fuels.At present it has 1,500 experimental vehicles on the road, including hydrogen, hybrid electric, propane, compressed natural gas (CN(i) and liquefied natural gas (LNG). We've even seen UPS-liveried bicycles on our travels.

Hydraulic hybrids But during 2005, UPS joined forces with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Eaton, International Truck and Engine, and the US Army to build and test the world's first two full hydraulic hybrid urban delivery vehicles. Last summer UPS's first hydraulic hybrid started operational trials, with its operation being overseen by EPA.

The PR blurb that accompanies this project is somewhat less in-your-face than the Wal-Mart missive:"Hydraulic hybrid technology, which promises significant emissions reduction and [improvements in] fuel economy, will power two vehicles that look like traditional brown UPS delivery trucks," we are told.

"The nature of our business, which requires vehicles to make frequent stops and starts, makes UPS an ideal partner to test this new automotive technology since the act of applying the vehicle's brakes increases the hydraulic pressure, or energy needed, to propel the vehicle without utilising the diesel engine."

In other words, UPS would be delighted to save the world, but it is also keen to save itself a dollar or twoand in the light of most of the posturing that surrounds the hybrid debate, we welcome its candour.

FedEx is similarly blunt. In partnership with Environmental Defense and Eaton, it introduced the FedEx Opt iFleet E700 delivery truck into its fleet in 2004. Projected reductions in PM (particulate matter) emissions of 96%, a 65% cut in smog-causing emissions and, crucially, a 57% rise in fuel efficiency were what caught FedEx's eye.

FedEx now operates 93 hybrid trucks and recently struck a deal with Azure Dynamics of Toronto to develop petrol parallel drivelines for its delivery fleet. Azure will supply a parallel hybrid-electric test vehicle to FedEx Express for the Ford E-450 hybrid commercial delivery van development program.

Once development is completed, FedEx Express plans to buy a minimum of 20 pre-production parallel hybrid-electric vans, to be delivered by May 2008. "FedEx Express introduced hybrid-electric vehicles to the commercial vehicle market six years ago, and we look forward to further advancing this important, environmentally conscious initiative with Ford and Azure Dynamics," says John Forrnisano, vicepresident of FedEx Express's global vehicles business.

This is all well and good. Big corporations are given to making mention of corporate social responsibility when anyone indicates a willingness to listen, and in each of the three cases discussed above that message comes across clearly.

But let's take a look at the underlying dynamics of what is going on here.Three companies, each with annual revenues that put them on a par with a medium-sized economy -Wal-Mart brings in more revenue per year than Belgium are dictating what they want from their suppliers.

Hence the growth in popularity of hybrid vehicles here is not based on the likes of Paccar or Daimler saying "we can do this" but on the basis of Wal-Mart, FedEx and UPS saying we want this-.

Consumer questions

So what? Well, for all that the three companies under review are doubtlessly large consumers of motor vehicles, they're not the only consumers. Does the fact that Wal-Mart is buying a Class 8 hybrid today mean that Joe Selina° in Schenectady will do likewise tomorrow? And if Tesco goes out and does the same, will an owner-driver in Southend be forsaking his engine by the weekend?

At its most fundamental, transport is a pretty simple business, involving the movement of a commodity between two points. And the equipment used in this task has evolved to match the demands placed upon it.The key demand is operational efficiency, which translates to mpg.

Hybrids offer an improved mpg in stop-start operation—according to FedEx, markedly so — but the vast majority of trucks are acquired through some means of finance, so the question of residual value comes into play.

How do you put a value on a new technology? You don't; you wait to see what Wal-Mart's new Class 8 goes under the hammer for come disposal time, and write it up accordingly.

Access problems As a result, access to hybrids for mainstream hauliers is likely to prove difficult, in at least the short to medium term.The vehicles exist, certainly, but unless you can afford to stand the risk of ownership, you'll find it hard to finance the deal. A nd if you do, remember there may be a penalty to pay in terms of perceived risk.

If that same penalty were capable of being passed Onto the end user of a vehicle — the economy at large, or, more bluntly, you and me at the supermarket checkout — there might be a business case for widespread adoption of hybrids But transport is always done to a price, so attempting to force hybrid vehicles into the equation at an increased cost becomes a fool's errand.

The only way we are likely to see their widespread adoption is through incentive or legislation. CM has been around for a century, and we remember any number of legislative sticks being applied to the industry, but scratch our heads when it comes to attempting to recall any form of encouraging carrot.Who remembers Scania's ill-fated excursion into the realms of natural-gas-powered tractor units? Safeway acquired a bunch and promptly parked them up.

All trucks are not created equal. Andreas Renschler, boss of Daimler AG's global CV unit.sees little future for hybrids beyond the middleweight class, even though Daimler's Fuso division is among the global leaders of hybrid development in this sector.This technology is beginning to filter through to the Sprinter range, but it seems unlikely to move up a weight category.

However, Paccar and Volvo seem keen to press ahead with hybridisation, right up to topweight trucks.

The true cost

Hybrids are nice.They offer us an opportunity to feel good about the future, and provide comfort when we are confronted by diminishing oil stocks, wars fought over the same and a perforated ozone layer.

But the reality is rather less cosy — hybrids come with a real cost attached to them.A pounds-shillings-and-pence-and-how-wouldsir-like-to-pay cost. For the moment, hybrids remain at the esoteric end of the vehicle business. But there has never been anything esoteric about money. •