Freightliner Begins Production of Diesel Hybrid Class 6 Beverage Truck
25 January 2008
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| The M2 106 Hybrid drop-frame beverage truck. |
Freightliner Trucks has begun production of its Business Class M2 106 Hybrid drop-frame beverage truck. The Class 6 truck features the Eaton medium-duty hybrid electric system (earlier post) and is designed specifically to address the challenges of hauling loads in an urban setting.
The medium-duty hybrid system uses a parallel, pre-transmission design with Eaton’s Fuller UltraShift automated transmission. Primary components are the Hybrid Drive Unit (HDU), which combines a clutch, a 44 kW/420 Nm motor/generator and automatically controlled manual transmission; the motor inverter/controller; the DC/DC converter; and a 2 kWh li-ion battery pack.
The M2 106 can deliver up to a 30% savings in fuel consumption, and up to an 87% reduction in idling time, according to Eaton. An added benefit of reducing idling time and subsequent lower emissions is that the M2 106 produces less noise, allowing for quieter loading and unloading in urban settings.
Freightliner engineers maximized the amount of space of the 12-bay beverage body by mounting most of the integrated hybrid components underneath and behind the cab.
The M2 106 Hybrid originally entered the market as a prototype at the 2006 Great American Trucking Show. The truck traveled across the United States to customers interested in testing it within their fleets.
In addition to the beverage market, the M2 Hybrid is targeted for utility, pickup and delivery and power takeoff operations.
The M2 106 Hybrid beverage truck is available for order.
Great stuff - if all our delivery trucks were replaced by hybrids, we would have much cleaner cities in 5-10 years.
All stop-start vehicles should go electric or hybrid - just a question of cost and maturity.
Posted by: | 25 January 2008 at 07:04 AM
Firstly, this is great news. However, it's curious that Freightliner and Eaton went with electric hybrid versus hydraulic hybrid. Eaton partnered with the EPA and UPS to create a delivery truck with a VW Rabbit engine paired with a hydraulic hybrid scheme that was 60% more efficient that it's predecessor. It is doubtful that the beverage truck has an all electric range of any significance and hydraulic hybrid is cheaper, lighter, and has a smaller environmental impact to manufacturer.
Posted by: s dogood | 25 January 2008 at 09:02 AM
@ s dogood,
I don't know the facts, so I am only speculating, but as an engineer, I have reservations about your statements that a hydraulic system would be lighter than a electric system. That goes against the grain of most of my engineering experience.
Posted by: Stan Peterson | 25 January 2008 at 09:26 AM
Having been around hydraulic CNC machines for many years I was happy when nearly all of the manufacturers realized that noise and maintenance issues were nearly impossible to overcome and they shifted to all electric systems.hydraulics can be great, but electrics are great.
Posted by: fred | 25 January 2008 at 12:29 PM
@ s dogood,
It's one thing for a prototype system to reach a certain performance or efficiency level. It's quite another for that system to become production-ready and demonstrate its long-term viability. Not saying the hydraulic hybrid system won't happen ... but it's probably not production-ready YET.
Posted by: Brian P | 25 January 2008 at 12:55 PM
...and electric hybrids will get progressively better as batteries performance increases and price goes down. Hydraulics do not have the same growing space oportunities.
Secondly, combo ESSUs (super caps + batteries) will soon give electrified hybrid delivery trucks, garbage trucks, city buses, taxis, etc a clear superiority with less maintenance, longer battery life, better accelleration and improved decelleration (braking) energy recouperation.
Posted by: Harvey D | 25 January 2008 at 01:28 PM