AN ELECTRIC TRUCK FOR FREE

November 16, 2011 Vol. 7, No. 26

Well, I exaggerate quite a lot with that headline, though not as much as you might think. Nothing except unwanted advice is ever free, but Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation (FCCC) and Enova Systems launched a program just today that will make electric vehicles much more accessible to fleets. They call it 'Green for Free'.

I'll learn more in a web presentation later this afternoon, but the gist of it is that you can buy an all-electric truck for the cost of a diesel-powered machine. FCCC and Enova say the savings allowed by the electric vehicle -- in reduced maintenance and no fuel purchases -- are then used over a period of time to cover the incremental expense for the technology.

Enova builds proprietary hybrid-electric and all-electric drive systems and components. FCCC is in the motorhome, walk-in van, school bus, and shuttle bus chassis business.

The Green for Free program will use the FCCC MT-45 all-electric walk-in van chassis powered by the Enova drive system. It was first shown (see photo) at The Work Truck Show in 2010. The chassis is rated for a GVWR of 14,000 to 19,500 lb.

Fleets with set routes in pickup-and-delivery applications are the targets here, of course, given their predictable trips and nightly return to home base. The project looks to focus only on such disciplined duty cycles, utilizing about 80% of the battery's capacity daily, versus a design for extended range.

FCCC is already well-established in the market and says it can provide immediate volume, which is required to reduce the cost of expensive components like batteries. The two companies plan to put 3000 of these vehicles on the road within two years, beginning no later than third-quarter 2012, as a result of the Green for Free program.

“FCCC and Enova recognize that the Green For Free program is necessary in order to make all-electric vehicles more affordable, and therefore more accessible, to fleets,” says Bob Harbin, FCCC president.

On the face of things, you've got to like this idea a lot, because we can't rely forever on government funding for alternative-fuel vehicles. FCCC notes that this program is good for small fleets as well as big ones. In this market so far, only the giants like FedEx and UPS and Purolator have been able to explore the alternative-to-diesel world.

More details next time out, once I learn how the program will actually work.

OH MAN, I LIKE THIS ONE. Seems a California group called the Pacific Legal Foundation has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's greenhouse-gas emissions standards for medium- and heavy-duty trucks and buses. The PLF folks, who think the rules would "spike costs" and get government over-involved in vehicle design, say they were illegally promulgated in the first place.

I say these guys are right on the money. It's clear to me that the rules are at best short-sighted and at worst, totally reckless. Look at my August 17th newsletter where I likened this mandate to a sledgehammer.

The donor-supported PLF, by the way, bills itself as "the leading watchdog organization that litigates for limited government, property rights, free enterprise, and a balanced approach to environmental regulations, in courts across the country."

In this particular suit the PLF represents the California Dump Truck Owners Association, Southern California Contractors Association, Inc., Dalton Trucking, Inc., of Fontana, Calif., and Delta Construction Company, Inc. of Sacramento. It charges that federal officials were legally required to submit the regulations for independent scientific scrutiny, but failed to do so.

The regulations were created jointly by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA), and were published in the Federal Register on September 15, 2011.

"EPA is dictating onerous new rules for vehicle manufacturers while violating important legal rules itself," says PLF senior staff attorney Ted Hadzi-Antich. "Federal law says EPA can't issue new clean-air regulations without submitting the proposals for independent scrutiny by its Science Advisory Board. EPA recklessly ignored this requirement. We're suing because federal regulators can't be allowed to thumb their noses at legal safeguards that are designed to ensure that new regulations are credible and well considered. When EPA acts like a scofflaw, it has to be called to account."

The Science Advisory Board is a panel of scientists from universities, research institutions, and other quite respectable organizations, empowered by federal law to review any new "criteria document, standard, limitation, or regulation" that EPA proposes to issue under the Clean Air Act.

"EPA rushed these rules through in order to impose comprehensive controls on carbon-dioxide emissions as quickly as possible," Hadzi-Antich claims. "They literally broke the law in their haste. Their refusal to submit the rules to independent scrutiny is especially troubling because these regulations would have a huge impact on the industry and the economy. They'll bring unprecedented federal intrusion into the manufacturing and use of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. They would add many thousands of dollars to the costs of new vehicles."

Couldn't agree more, and the PLF suit matches one of my main beefs, namely that this fuel and emissions mandate amounts to what the PLF calls "government micromanaging of truck design." That's exactly true. In fact it's clear that with this new regime, SmartWay is the only way. I could see this coming long before the new EPA/NHTSA rule, that the SmartWay spec was turning into the only spec.

The PLF suit charges that the demand to increase fuel efficiency while decreasing CO2 emissions demands in turn new engine and emissions-treatment designs, which then will require aerodynamic redesign. I think it goes further than aerodynamics and deeply into things like component packaging, not to mention weight management.

"The federal government now wants to dictate the actual design of trucks, tractors, and other heavy duty vehicles used throughout the economy," says the PLF.

The financial cost of all this to individual truck operators is unknown but it won't be small, and as one PLF client says, it could easily ruin him at a time when his business is already in deep trouble.

"With these regulations in place, my four heavy-duty vehicles could be declared obsolete, and there will be no hope my employees could get back to work," says. Norman 'Skip' Brown, owner of Delta Construction. "Modifying or purchasing new equipment in today's economy is financially impossible."

Who knows how this suit will go, but I'm awfully glad to see the green bandwagon hasn't collected absolutely everybody and made them all blind to the practical realities of life in the business lane. By all means, let's save fuel and reduce emissions, but let's be smart about it. Let's examine the whole picture.

HINO WILL BE DELIVERING HYBRID TRUCKS by year's end. The company first showed its new class 4/5 cabover 155h and 195h diesel electric hybrids at the Work Truck Show in Indianapolis this past March, and at the recent Hybrid Truck Users Forum it started taking orders.

The company claims the fuel efficiency of these trucks -- the 14,500-lb 155h and 19,500-lb 195h -- is about 30% better than comparable diesels. And they should know, having started selling diesel/electric buses way back in 1991, with a total hybrid sales tally of something like 10,000 so far. The latest trucks are actually sixth-generation hybrids in Hino terms.

Powered by Hino’s 5-litre J05E series engine, the hybrids use Aisin’s A465 6-speed automatic transmission and nickel-metal-hydride battery packs by Toyota subsidiary Primearth EV Energy. Hino is also a Toyota company, of course, and the new trucks use much of the same technology and hardware present on the Prius hybrid car.

CORRECTION: THE SKIRT NUT. Last week I wrote about the cool little Skirt Nut from Safety Trigo. It replaces the standard flange nut on hub-piloted disc wheels and is said to eliminate torque loss while improving tire wear.

Anyway, I wrote that the inventor, James Holmes, was an American fleet operator. Wrong.

Safety Trigo chief Dave Brennan gently corrected me, explaining that James is in fact a proud Canadian who runs a family-owned trucking fleet out of Brampton, Ont. He did all the testing on the product at a rented Canadian airfield using a modified version of the Hayes Wheel test criteria and his own trucks and trailers. The nut is made in Concord, Ont.

Sorry, Dave. And a bigger sorry to you, James.

THIS NEWSLETTER IS NOW PUBLISHED every week. It's a heads-up notice about what's going on with trucking technology. I also write here about interesting products that may not have had the 'air play' they deserved within the last few months.

I should remind you that I don’t endorse any of the products I write about in this e-newsletter, nor do I have the resources to test them. What you’re getting is reasonably well educated opinion based on more than three decades in trucking.

If you have comments of whatever sort about Product Watch, or maybe you've tried a gizmo I should know about, please contact me at rolf@newcom.ca.

WIDE TRAILER TIRE

(November 16, 2011) -- Double Coin announces super-wide, SmartWay-verified tire

PACCAR TELEMATICS

(November 16, 2011) -- An aftermarket fleet-management service using proprietary cellular technology

DISC-BRAKE AXLE

(November 16, 2011) -- Ridewell offers its axle with MeritorWABCO disc brakes

ROTARY SCISSOR LIFT

(November 09, 2011) -- Rotary says it now has an inground lift for every heavy-duty application

TMW CERTIFIES PC*MILER 25

(November 09, 2011) -- ALK announces successful integration and certification by TMW Systems