A UPS 1st gen hybrid delivery van boosts fuel efficiency 28.9% and cuts cost per mile by 15%.
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has collected and analyzed fuel economy, maintenance and other vehicle performance data from UPS’s first generation hybrid diesel step delivery vans powered by an Eaton Corp. electric hybrid propulsion system.
The diesel hybrid delivery vans improved the on-road fuel economy by 28.9 percent resulting in a 15 percent improvement in total cost per mile while maintaining similar reliability and operational performance as compared to conventional vehicles.
The vans did well in a 12 month eval in Phoenix. So they must be able to handle the heat.
Funded by the DOE's Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity (AVTA), NREL's Fleet Test & Evaluation (FT&E) team performed a 12-month evaluation of six of these hybrid vans at a UPS location in Phoenix.
The report released this week details the year-long demonstration project, including how the FT&E team collected and analyzed fuel economy, maintenance and other vehicle performance data on the vans, which are being used in delivery service.
UPS has ordered 200 of the hybrids. With such large savings why is the order so small?
UPS has recently ordered an additional 200 Eaton hybrid electric powered vans.
200 hybrid delivery trucks still amount to small potatoes compared to the over 100,000 vehicles which a 2006 articles says UPS operates.
UPS deliver 15 million packages per day in over 200 countries. UPS has over 100,000 vehicles and 600 airplanes. UPS employs over 400,000 people. UPS is the ninth largest airline on the planet. They are experts at reducing the cost and fuel usage of moving millions of packages. Over 1,700 of those vehicles use alternative fuel, savings millions of gallons of oil and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2000, UPS alternative-fuel vehicles have logged 108 million route miles — enough to circle the Earth more than 4,300 times. These 1,700 vehicles run on natural gas, propane and hydrogen. (www.community.ups.com/environment/fuels.html)
Big fleet. UPS as the 9th largest airline. Wow. I had no idea.
That 2006 article provides some idea of how much fuel each hybrid will save per year.
UPS has ordered 50 hybrid delivery trucks, which will reduce fuel consumption by 44,000 gallons per year.
Okay, that's 880 gallons saved per year per vehicle. Suppose this latest design can save as much as the 2006 article expected. If UPS could replicate that across 100,000 vehicles they might be able to save 88 million gallons of fuel per year.
| Share | | Randall Parker, 2010 January 03 01:07 PM Energy Transportation |
Just some speculative guesswork here. It sounds like the vehicles that were tested here are the short range delivery vans that take the packages to their final destinations, not the long range semi-trucks that move packages between hubs, which I'm assuming are included in the 100,000 vehicle figure. The semis won't get nearly the benefit from an electric/diesel hybrid engine. So what proportion of UPS's 100,000 vehicles are the delivery vans?
I'd bet 200 is still a tiny fraction of their delivery vans. Perhaps they're gradually replacing their fleet. Roll out the hybrids to replace older vans in need of repairs or replacement. This would let them wait on a full fleet replacement until prices go down and efficiency increases further. I don't know about the routes these hybrid vans were tested on. Perhaps many of the vans make longer routes where they'd get less benefit from the electric motor.
Suppose delivery vans are 10% of the fleet. At 200 vans per year, it would take them 50 years to replace the fleet. I strongly doubt their vehicles have a 50 year lifetime. Of course, if they bought most of their fleet only on certain years, they may have few vehicles that need replacing any time soon because their oldest vehicles might all still have a few years left in them...
And they may have an existing contract with someone that requires them to buy a certain number of delivery vans per year until the contract runs out.
Hard to say why such a small number unless it's in an annual report or something, but 200 is a small number.
The reason they didn't buy a bunch more:
"The hybrid group had a cumulative average of 95.5% uptime over the 12-month study
period, less than the diesel group’s cumulative average of 99.3% uptime. The hybrids
experienced troubleshooting and recalibration issues related to prototype components that
are primarily responsible for the lower uptime figures. "
8 - 10 days a year more downtime.
Of course they may fix those issues next batch, or they may never approach diesels reliability.
Adam,
I found one figure from 5 years ago that UPS has 88,000 delivery vans. They might have more now.
"The vans did well in a 12 month eval in Phoenix. So they must be able to handle the heat."
That's great, but can they handle the COLD! It was -18°F here when the UPS truck came by this morning, and diesel is notoriously unreliable in extreme cold. They leave the kids school buses running overnight when it's this cold or they wont start in the morning.
Garages and engine block heaters. (Lot's of diesel have block heaters. Also an electric hybrid would have a large cranking reserve.
An electric hybrid can move to a nice, warm garage under its own power even if the diesel won't start right away.
"Li-ion batteries are designed for operating environments from 0º C or 32º F to 60º C or 140º F. Usage in extreme temperatures (either hot or cold) can cause premature degradation of the cells or electronics within the battery."
Sure EP ... sure.
Anecdotes from the Electric car experiment:
"In a pinch, they turn off the heater or the air conditioner, tolerating a chill or a sweat to get another mile. And they have learned that in very cold weather, they must further restrict their travels. When temperatures dip, the normal 100-mile range can shrink to as little as 80."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/23/AR2009122303463_2.html?hpid=topnews
Bruce,
The various lithium chemistries and fabrication techniques are not at all equal in durability or robustness under extreme operating conditions. GM chose a newer chemistry that has better performmance. See my post Chevy Volt Batteries In Cold Weather and also Dan Neil Drives Chevy Volt. Pay attention to what Rob Peterson of GM said when he showed up here.
A123Systems cells rated at -20F to +140 F (the Killacycle runs them at about 160 F to get the best discharge performance).
Of course, a PHEV delivery truck is very likely to be plugged in overnight, and keeping a battery up to -15 F isn't terribly difficult.
A well designed extended range EV (aka plug-in hybrid), like the Volt, has a climate control/temperature management system for the battery.
As E-P notes, a plug-in hybrid is designed to be....plugged in. That means that most of the time the minor power needs of the temp management system will come from the grid. For the small fraction of the time that one is parked out in the cold for an extended period, the ICE generator will start immediately when the car is started, and provide power during the short time that is required to bring the battery up to optimal operating temperature.
Another reason why ErEV/PHEVs seems likely to be the optimal design for most people for quite some time.