EATON BEGINS COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION OF HYBRID SYSTEMS
Eaton Corporation announced that the company’s 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, including bus chassis. The announcement follows more than four years of development and two 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 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 city buses which have generated significant fuel economy gains and emission reductions.
Testing is among others taking place in Europe with DAF Trucks, which supplies to VDL Bus Group, and in Asia with the Beiqi Foton Bus Company, one of China's largest commercial vehicle producers. 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.
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.
In addition to its diesel-electric hybrid products, Eaton is also developing advanced hybrid systems using hydraulic power. Working with the Environmental Protection Agency under a Cooperative Research and Development agreement, Eaton is helping develop a “series hydraulic hybrid” power system that combines a high-efficiency diesel engine and a unique hydraulic propulsion system to replace the conventional drivetrain and transmission. The vehicle uses hydraulic pump/motors and hydraulic storage tanks to recover and store energy, similar to what is done with electric motors and batteries in hybrid electric vehicles.
Eaton also has a “parallel hydraulic hybrid” system that utilizes regenerative braking and has a number of other applications. This system, known as the Eaton HLA® system (for Hydraulic Launch Assist), is being initially targeted at refuse trucks, but could also be useful for certain types of buses.
