The objective of this truck test was a simple one. PowerTorque would drive a hybrid electric Hino 300 Series around a typical urban delivery test route in Sydney followed by an identical truck powered only by diesel. Measuring the amount of diesel burnt over the journey for both trucks would give the amount of difference in overall fuel consumption and also the reduction of CO2 going into the atmosphere.
Over the 82km, which is probably half a shift for a truck like this. Calculating from this relatively small experiment, it is possible to calculate the kind of savings available over a year for a hybrid compared to a conventional diesel.
Of course, Hino won’t give precise figures for lease payments on the two different technologies, but we know there is a premium on a hybrid truck over the diesel, and that commonly works out at around a 25 per cent price premium for the hybrid version.
The test run would probably, in practice, equate to a truck doing just over 41,000km a year in a similar application. The hybrid should be able to save around 1500 litres of diesel a year at that rate. If you are counting, that’s a reduction in carbon emissions of well over 300kg. Going on current fuel prices, that’s up to $3000 less spent on fuel and that will be clawing back that hybrid premium, from the first month.
Daniel suggests the maintenance costs on the hybrid will be $60 a month less than for the diesel. The engine is working less hard and the electric power component needs less maintenance. Brakes should last longer, when the battery regeneration helps retard the vehicle when slowing down. The calculation will come to break even territory between four and five years into the truck’s life.
The average Hino buyers tend to get a truck with a five year finance package, and then keep the truck for seven to ten years. In that scenario, a hybrid has probably saved the buyer most of the initial hybrid premium by the end of the finance agreement, and will definitely be either level pegging or better off over the whole period of ownership with a hybrid.
This is the kind of detail the Hino team are going into with clients now, telling them there is an advantage in buying hybrid over over diesel now, with the added benefit of being seen to be trying to do something about global warming. Plus, if the price of diesel looks set to climb higher then the logic behind a hybrid purchase. just gets stronger.
Hino is the only truck maker active in Australia with a hybrid option, and their competitors will be pushing the jump straight to battery electric vehicles (BEV), missing out on this first step. The fact is that the hybrid is available now, and can start to offer real fuel and carbon savings now, but the BEV is still an expensive item, with limited infrastructure for recharging and with no clear picture of pricing or possible subsidies.
As a driver the experience of taking this truck around the city is a relaxed one. The response from the truck is smooth and comfortable with the fact that there is an electric motor and batteries involved in the driveline, simply making the whole process of speeding up and slowing down much less stressed, The bonus is the engine shutting off as soon as the truck is stationary, it’s the serenity.
Out on the road the AMT will make precise gear changes when the truck is setting off. Sometimes, there’s something a bit ponderous about it. As the driver takes their foot off the brake, the AMT has to be in neutral, engage the clutch, start the engine, disengage the clutch, select the gear, then move off.
There is a cure for this on the part of the driver, if they take the foot off the brake, as the car in front’s brake lights go off, then the truck will set off at the right time and keep the queue moving. This is because, if the engine’s running when the car immediately in front sets off, it’s good to go.
These are the sorts of things the driver will have to do to make the kinds of savings achieved possible. That is think about a strategy to save fuel and enact it out on the road. This is probably both the hybrid’s strength and weakness.
This technology makes it possible for a motivated driver to put in some effort and probably get a better saving than this PowerTorque test achieved. However, give it to a driver with a heavy right foot and no incentive to save fuel, then the premium on the hybrid price is going to take a lot longer to be paid down.
