I Got Your Hybrid Grocery Getter...

PETERBILT TO UNVEIL ADVANCED HYBRID TECHNOLOGIES

DENTON, Texas (November 6, 2006) – Peterbilt will display a production-representative, hybrid-electric medium duty truck – outfitted with a fully integrated bucket lift body – at the Hybrid Truck Users Forum National Meeting in San Diego this month, Peterbilt Motors Company recently announced.

The Class 7 Model 335 is ideal for municipal and utility applications and features advanced technologies that provide improved fuel economy while reducing noise and emissions. The hybrid Model 335 will be in limited production in 2007.

They are already on the road.
The latest models should be out by now for 2008.
Here is some detail of how it works;

According to Peterbilt Chief Engineer Landon Sproull, the truck uses a parallel hybrid system that was developed with Eaton Corporation. A parallel hybrid system has an electric motor that assists the mechanical diesel engine with supplemental torque for improved fuel economy. The system stores energy during stopping through a process called regenerative braking, and then reuses it for acceleration. The system also stores energy during idling and uses it to power the vehicle’s PTO.

Basically the same ideas used in the smaller puddle jumper class of cars being touted, just on a much bigger scale.

The reduced maintenance requirements, Sproull says, result from less wear on the engine, as its workload is supplemented by the electric engine, and the brakes, since the charging of the batteries retards the motion of the vehicle.

The truck and body communicate through a new J1939 digital controller. This interface senses hydraulic demand from the body and automatically engages the hybrid system. Under a full charge, the PTO can operate for approximately 25 minutes at which time the vehicle will automatically start the diesel engine and recharge the hybrid’s batteries. “It takes about three minutes to fully recharge,” Sproull says. “So, during eight hours of operation, the diesel engine will run for less than an hour.”

A PTO, for those who don't know, is a Power Take Off.
It is a device usually mounted on the side or bottom of the transmission that, when engaged, powers different add on mechanisms,typically a hydraulic pump.

For more info.


I expect almost all big rigs will be going to this soon, the cost of fuel will demand it.Already, long haul tuckers are adding supplemental fuel tanks to take advantage of price differences between states that can be as much as a fifty to seventy cents a gallon for diesel.
2007 required innovative engine management strategies and new technology to use the highly de-sulphered fuel mandated.These new engines suck, to be honest. The 2006 models had been back ordered to no end from people trying to extend the life of their investment and avoid the hefty price increase that went with the new technology.