I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of days now. On Monday, I started driving a van for Interstate Battery, and it costs about $60 to fill the tank from 1/4 to full. I make three delivery runs per week, and have to fill up every day I make a run. My route is quite long, from Kalamazoo, MI to Lansing, Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Jackson, but I think this is the case for many fleet vehicles.
So, the question: Wouldn’t it be more effective for automakers to focus hybrid technology on fleet vans and trucks? The additional cost of the hybrid engine would be made up much quicker by businesses then by the average individual consumer, since fleet vehicles get driven more. I would think that the economic effect would also be greater, since companies would have to pay less for gas, therefore increasing profits by reducing overhead. Increased profits would lead to either lower prices for the consumer or higher wages for the workers, both of which are good things. Of course, I’m basing that assumption on my experience, since I work for a really cool guy who would do that with any additional profit he made.
Before you point out how big the electric motor would have to be to move a cargo van, I’d like to add that this could be feasable by using 2-4 smaller electric motors in conjunction with the gas motor, rather than the 1 gas, 1 electric setup seen in the Prius, Insight, and Escape.
On long highway runs, the savings would be minimal. If you don’t use the brakes much, the regenerative braking benefit is lost. Urban buses would be a very good use.
Fleet buyers have bean counters that furiously crunch the numbers on this stuff. If they’re not buying hybrids in bulk yet, it’s because they’ve decided that it’s just not economically advantageous. They’re even factoring in the future price of gas, PR benefits they get from a ‘green’ fleet, the cost of the risk of early adoption, and all that stuff.
But it’s getting close, I think. I think you’re going to start seeing hybrids moving into fleets fairly soon. Within the next few years.
As for the fleet of heavier vehicles, I don’t know. I think you’d have to analyze how each vehicle is used. Long haul trucks would gain almost no advantage from hybrid technology. Long downhill grades would gain you a bit, I suppose.
Vehicles that sit motionless for long periods of time with the engine running might be good candidates - work vehicles often fit in this category. You drive a truck a few hundred feet, stop, do some work, drive a little further… Often vehicles are left idling during work stoppages. Hybrid technology might work out well here.
The OP is almost a truism. Getting big industry to take up the “early adopter” role, often with government subsidy or prodding, is the best way to get it off the ground. The economy of scales can overcome the thin profit margin.
Unfortunately the military and construction firms usually take that role and they are in a poor position to do that here due to their power requirments for vehicles. One interesting way of changing their (military planners’) minds might be focussing on the “mobile power plant” aspect of some hybrid lines.
Larger trucks and buses often run on diesel. However there has begun a small movement to get diesel fleets to switch to Biodiesel. Biodiesel is low in particulate emissions, naturally high in octane, is interchangeable with standard diesel in relatively modern vehicles and is made from soybeans or other vegetable oil. I know the Toledo Parks Department has switched to B2 (2% biodiesel mixed with 98% standard) and I think ?Philadelphia is switching to either B2 or B20 for their school buses.
Virtually all taxi fleets in Australia run on LPG, presumable because the economics work out. I would expect taxis to be the first to switch to any new, more efficient technology.
General Motors is selling hybrid diesel/electric municipal buses. They’ve delivered them to Seattle and Yosemite National Park, among other places. (But for passenger cars, GM is devoting resources to developing hydrogen-powered vehicles, even though that’s years away. I think they should have pursued gas/electric hybrids as are Toyota and Honda.)