United Parcel Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently unveiled a prototype of an environmentally friendly hydraulic hybrid delivery truck. "This particular vehicle has 70 percent increased fuel efficiency and 40 percent less carbon emissions, so it uses less gasoline and emits far less greenhouse gas into the air," Alan Steinberg of the EPA said. And like other types of hybrids, this vehicle can run without gas completely when it's idle or traveling up to 25 or 30 mph. Read more.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jkash @ Jul 2 2006, 08:02 PM) [snapback]280295[/snapback]</div> All I can say is YEA!!! What better vehicle to 'hybridize' that one that probably spends more time stopped and idling than any other??
I do like the idea of this truck and the fact that it is made with parts that are available easily, no batteries to wear out, lots of on demand power and potentially low cost. Now the bad side.... This system is only capable of 2000 horse power seconds of power, or 100hp for 20 seconds. The Prius batteries hold alot more energy. Now they cannot deliver the power that fast but this system does not hold alot of energy. Even with improvements there is only so much fluid the system can hold, and even if you pressurise it more, its gonna weigh more. In the end supercaps as a buffer for batteries would work much better.
