London Mayor Boris Johnson took a ride on one of his city's brand new, emissions-slashing double-deckers Friday, calling the bus “the latest, greatest masterpiece of British engineering and design.”
When you take gas-electric technologies and put them into heavy duty vehicles like earth movers, the resulting emissions savings can equal that of 14 Priuses over the course of a year.
According to a report released yesterday by Pike Research, sales of medium to heavy-duty hybrid trucks are poised to reach volumes of more than 100,000 per year by 2017.
Last week, hybrid conversion startup ALTe and battery maker A123 Systems signed a long-term contract to enable ALTe to build extended-range light-duty fleet trucks by next summer.
A123 will supply 21.6 kwh – and eventually other – battery packs for the high-mpg plug in series hybrids that will operate similarly to a Chevy Volt or Fisker Karma.
From June 19-22 Quantum Technologies is showcasing an extended-range electric vehicle conversion of the Ford F-150 pickup at the Electric Utility Fleet Managers Conference in Williamsburg, Va. With similar range performance to a Chevy Volt, the PHEV version of one of America’s best-selling light-duty trucks is said to go 35 miles in all-electric mode, then shift to hybrid-electric mode for a total range of over 400 miles.
One of the siren songs for environmentalists is reducing the need for oil so governments don’t feel it necessary to fight wars for it – but ironically, one of the largest drivers in the global push for renewable energy development could well become the military. According to a study this week by Pike Research, the U.S. Department of Defense as well as combined military agencies in all developed and developing countries are projected to increase annual spending of today’s $1.8 billion to $26.8 billion by 2030. U.S. DOD renewable energy spending for land, air, and sea mobility alone is estimated to jump 5.6 times in the next four years from $400 million annually to $2.25 billion in 2015. By 2030, it is projected to be spending $7.5 billion annually just on renewable energy for mobility needs.
According to a study issued this week by Pike Research, the U.S. Department of Defense as well as combined military agencies in all developed and developing countries are projected to increase annual spending of today’s $1.8 billion to $26.8 billion by 2030.
U.S. DOD renewable energy spending for land, air, and sea mobility alone is estimated to jump 5.6 times in the next four years from $400 million annually to $2.25 billion in 2015. By 2030, it is projected to be spending $7.5 billion annually just on renewable energy for mobility needs.
BMW says it will launch a new joint car-sharing service this year, offering premium vehicles and a range of supporting services that the company says will be the first of a kind for the industry.
Over the last 100 years, Ford has been built on the principle that every person in the United States should be able to afford a vehicle. But at a recent media event associated with the Detroit Auto Show, Sue Cischke, Ford's Group Vice President of Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering, said that Ford doesn't see how that model could work in the developing world.
[HCTITLE]
[HCDATE] UPS has announced that it will purchase an additional 130 hybrid delivery trucks for use in the United States, bringing the total number of hybrids it will soon have in circulation to 380. The company has so far invested $25 million dollars to build an alternative fuels fleet of more than 2,000 vehicles worldwide. In July, UPS pledged to make its overall fleet at least 20 percent more fuel efficient by 2020—a goal that will require a significant financial investment and massive planning.
The General Services Administration (GSA) ordered 5,600 gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles earlier this year, and the first batch arrived about a month ago. This brings the total of the federal hybrid vehicle fleet to more than 11,000 cars and trucks, slightly less than two percent of the 600,000 vehicles the government operates.
