Azure Dynamics Corporation today announced at the CALSTART/NTEA Green Truck Summit that AT&T has agreed to purchase two of the first Ford Transit Connect Electric vans, the latest addition to AT&T’s growing fleet of alternative-fuel vehicles. The Ford Transit Connect Electric -- the all-electric version of the 2010 Ford Transit Connect, the North American Truck of the Year -- will be powered by Azure Dynamics’ patented Force DriveTM electric drivetrain with an advanced lithium-ion battery from Johnson Controls-Saft. The vehicle, which goes on sale later this year, has a range of up to 80 miles on a single charge and will be rechargeable using either 240-volt or standard 120-volt outlets. It has a top speed of 75 miles per hour. [More]

St. Louis, MO - The US EPA will regulate truck emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) and those regulations will likely be linked with emerging fuel efficiency standards for trucks, according to presentations made at the CALSTART-NTEA Green Truck Summit in St. Louis. While no specific timing or rules were announced, they are coming said the EPA's Byron Bunker. He said the agency has the authority under the Clean Air Act and will develop emissions rules for GHGs. He gave a sense of how such rules may roll out by referring to past air quality rules, which laid out steady reduction "steps" over time. The agency intends to collaborate with industry to develop the rules and did lay out its principles for the regulations: 1) to build off the SmartWay program; 2) to get reductions as soon as possible, perhaps starting by 2014; 3) to get reductions from the whole vehicle, not just the engine: 4) to make a straight-forward, clear regulation; and 5) to keep flexibility to design trucks that can do the work fleets need. Bunker also said that just like with passenger car rules, where GHG and fuel efficiency standards have been aligned, the rules for trucks will also align efficiency and GHG standards so truck makers do not face two different sets of rules.

St Louis, MO - Despite the national recession, momentum in the medium- and heavy-duty hybrid truck and bus market continues to grow and expand in product type, according to a panel of experts speaking at the CALSTART-NTEA Green Truck Summit in St. Louis.  Dimitri Kazarinoff, VP and General Manager of Eaton Hybrid Power Systems, said that last year his company increased their system sales by five times over the previous year and now have hybrid systems operating on four continents with 35 million miles of experience. The panel noted that hybrid system costs are dropping, but that early market incentives were still critically important to maintain momentum while production volumes are still low. Darren Gosbee, Director of Hybrid Strategy and Execution for Navistar (International Trucks), said he felt incentives for hybrids were very important through about 2014, but that the industry can stand on its own by then without incentives. Ed Greif, VP Engineering for Bosch Rexroth, noted that hydraulic hybrids are now moving to market, and that refuse applications were a very promising first application but that other applications, like parcel delivery, also so great promise. Panelists shared the idea that there will be no single technology "winner" in hybrids but we will need a range of approches.  They also noted growing interest in hybrids for shuttle bus and regional heavy-haul applications, and the growth of next generation capabilities, including electrified components, reduction in energy storage costs, plug-in and all-electric vehicles.

Eaton’s Hybrid Fuel Tank Isolation Valve enables fuel vapor containment within the tank until the engine is available and prevents canister saturation and hydrocarbon leakage. The design allows for quick tank venting, minimizing refueling ‘splash-back’ caused by high fuel tank pressures...


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The funding focuses on three areas: “Grid Scale Rampable Intermittent Dispatchable Storage,” cost effective storage that can manipulate the variable, short-duration generating capacity; “Agile Delivery of Electrical Power Technology,” which involves high-performance power converters; and “Building Energy Efficiency Through Innovative Thermodevices (BEET-IT) seeking high efficiency heating and cooling technologies, with an emphasis on technologies that perform in warm, humid, and hot climates...


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