Driving The FedEx Hybrid
One of the most interesting opportunities we had at the track was to drive Eaton's hybrid diesel-electric development route van built for FedEx Express. The base vehicle is a Freightliner Workhorse Custom chassis with Utilimaster aluminum walk-in van body. Outwardly, it looks like any of the thousands of FedEx Express delivery vans we all see every day. That's the end of any similarity.
Under the hood is a Mercedes four-cylinder diesel, which drives through an Eaton six-speed UltraShift transmission when the vehicle is at cruise speed and the electric motor isn't in the loop. During hard acceleration, I was very much aware of the combined torque of the electric and mechanical drive and the brief pause as the automated manual tranny shifted.
It was impossible to tell when the vehicle was in partial diesel and partial electric drive.
From a normal (slow) start, as in heavy traffic, the engine just idled but transmitted no mechanical power. The truck accelerated slowly, entirely by electric drive. The engineer riding with me had a special display panel and told me at what points I was all-electric, part mechanical/electric drive or all mechanical. Likewise, when braking, I couldn't differentiate between dynamic (electric) braking or the standard hydraulic brakes.
Fed Ex\ Express has contracted to buy 20 of these trucks, mostly next year as part of a demonstration project partially federally funded. Eaton execs hope a commercial market will grow out of these first 20. They said it will take about 20,000 trucks per year to make them competitive. In the meantime, FedEx will be gathering operating and maintenance data on the vehicles once in service. Biggest benefit will be reduced exhaust emissions and considerable fuel savings on in-city routes, which typically have a lot of stop/start time.
— Jim Winsor
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