EPA and the UPS (United Parcel Service) have formulated a hydraulic hybrid delivery car to demonstrate and explore environmental advantages of the hydraulic hybrid for urban pick-up and delivery fleets.

The demonstration car is a 24,000 pound United Parcel Service package vehicle, fitted with an Environmental Protection Agency-patented full-series hydraulic hybrid drive incorporated into the rear axle. The vehicle participated in the Michelin Challenge Bibendum in China with other advanced technologies vehicles and received the top overall ranking amongst all commercial hybrid cars (urban buses delivery vehicles).

In laboratory tests, the city fuel efficiency of the hydraulic hybrid UPS car is 60% to 70% enhanced miles per gallon as compared with a traditional UPS truck. The CO2 releases of the demonstration United Parcel Service vehicle are more than 40 percent lower than a comparable traditional UPS vehicle. The hydraulic hybrid vehicle also achieves approximately 50 percent lower hydrocarbon and 60 percent lower particulate matter in laboratory tests. This prototype car has additionally demonstrated modest decreases in NOx emissions. Optimized production cars are anticipated to have bigger NOx reductions. Hydraulic hybrids are able to seizure and utilize 70-80 percent of the other wasted braking energy.

When commercialized in high volume, EPA estimates that the extra price of hydraulic hybrid technologies has the potential to be about $7,000 for the UPS package vehicle. In current dollars, the net lifetime savings of this technology in a typical United Parcel Service truck, which is utilized for twenty years, could be over $50,000. If fuel costs continue to increase quicker than inflation, the lifetime savings could be even higher. The present information demonstrates that hydraulic hybrid cars have excellent prospective not merely for huge commercial urban vehicles but also for personal vehicles, particularly bigger personal vehicles such big SUVs, pickups, and vans.