It took ten years and plenty of hard work, but Eaton Corp. has announced its hybrid power systems have now surpassed 30 million miles of operation on commercial vehicles.
“Eaton hybrid commercial vehicles are true workhorses that are helping our customers complete the job at hand while also helping them reduce their fuel consumption and level of pollutants,” said Dimitri Kazarinoff, vp & gm of Eaton’s Hybrid Power Systems Division. “This milestone has taken 10 years to achieve, but as the technology becomes even more mainstream and the benefits better understood, we are confident that we can reach the next 30 million miles in a fraction of the time.”
There are more than 2,400 systems in use on trucks, buses and other commercial vehicles, Eaton said. FedEx, which operates the largest fleet of commercial hybrid parcel trucks in the U.S., has accounted for more than five million of the miles itself.
“Together we are demonstrating that hybrids are very reliable at reducing fuel consumption and emissions,” said John Formisano, vp-global vehicles, FedEx Express. “Since 2004, with the help of Eaton, we have reduced our fuel use by nearly 200,000 gallons and carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 2,000 metric tons. This is the equivalent of removing more than 300 cars from the road annually.”
Eaton offers hybrid electric, plug-in hybrid electric, and two hybrid hydraulic power systems, all of which are either in operation or development phases on some of the world’s largest truck OEMs products. In 2009, Peterbilt began offering a HLA hydraulic hybrid power system on refuse trucks.
Companies as diverse as FedEx, UPS, Coca-Cola Enterprises, PepsiCo and Wal-Mart are using delivery vehicles with Eaton hybrid systems. Work trucks with Eaton hybrid power are also in service at Florida Power and Light, and many utility and telecom companies across North America, Beijing Transit and other city bus transit fleets in Asia are using Eaton hybrid power in their fleets.
Eaton hybrid systems can produce fuel savings up to 35% with corresponding reductions in emissions, extended brake life and idle time reductions up to 87% during work site operations.