New Discovery in Hybrid-Electric Drivetrains
My life’s work is finding good ideas in cleantech and moving them forward, a deeply rewarding mission, but one that comes with numerous thorny challenges, especially a) sorting through literally thousands of business concepts that come my way in order to find those that hold the greatest potential, and then b) assisting this tiny subset in getting across some of the hurdles that face them: raising investment capital, establishment of strategic business partners, telling their story in public relations venues, demand generation, etc.
Here’s something I came across the other day that I fell instantly in love with: the best, most innovative hybrid electric drive train in the known universe.
Before I set out to justify this admittedly radical claim, let’s take a step back and briefly examine the present and most probable future of automotive transportation. A few facts:
There are a few more than one billion cars and trucks on the planet today (about 750 million cars and about 350 million trucks and buses).
Given their numbers, trucks consume a disproportionate share of fuel. Almost exactly 1% of the motor vehicles in the U.S. are Class 8 trucks (over 33,000 pounds gross vehicle weight), but they consume over 21% of our fuel.
In a hyper-competitive global economy, there is intense pressure to reduce the purchase price and costs of ownership of all motor vehicles.
The pressure to reduce the emissions profile from all these motor vehicles is arguably even more intense. All this is evolving every day, but here in the U.S., the federal government has set an aggressive target for the automakers who wish to sell their products here: a Corporate Average Fuel Economy of 54.5 MPG by the year 2025.
There are numerous important trends in auto/truck design that are influencing the OEMs’ ability (or inability) to achieve these targets, principally alt-fuel vehicles, light-weighting, technology to achieve better fuel combustion, and simply offering smaller passenger cars to those who may wish to reduce payments at the pump, or the growing group of environmentally conscious consumers.
The many different varieties of hybrid electric and pure electric vehicles are an extremely important component of the trend towards lower emissions, yet this is a far more complicated and dynamic arena than most people realize. Many thousands of the world’s top engineers are working tirelessly to optimize all the various factors:
• Minimizing the cost of batteries, as well as the size and weight (thus maximizing the volumetric and gravimetric energy- and power-density).
• Right-sizing the internal combustion engine that can either charge the batteries in a series hybrid or provide power directly to the drive-shaft in a parallel hybrid, or, optimally, do both, automatically switching in real-time depending on the nature of the demand for power and the state of charge of the battery.
• Offering the option to export power for other vehicle operations, e.g., lifting a telescoping aerial lift for a utility truck, driving the robotics for garbage trucks, etc.
Now, one might ask: Don’t the major automakers design their own drive trains? The answer is both yes and no. Often, the huge OEMs look to outside design expertise for cutting-edge thinking, quick turnaround, and the shattering of old paradigms. For example, BMW cut a deal with San Dimas, CA-based AC Propulsion when it came time to develop the drivetrain for their all-electric Mini-E.
Back to the matter at hand: I recently came across Efficient Drivetrains, based in Milpitas, CA (about 40 minutes from San Francisco). Here’s a great example of automotive excellence in the context of a speciality application that would never happen between a customer buying product from an OEM or dealer.
Imagine you’re Pacific Gas and Electric, one of the largest investor-owned utilities in the world. You serve two-thirds of the state of California with 20,000 employees and a fleet of 11,000 vehicles, including 942 Class 5 work trucks (shown above and below). You’ve worked hard for more than two decades to incorporate more efficient and sustainable transportation technologies, while investing in a range of electric, natural gas and hybrid vehicles and other high-efficiency technologies to reduce emissions, operating costs and dependency on petroleum-based fuels. The task of replacing every one of these Class 5 trucks with plug-in hybrids is now officially underway, and, more to the point, is being made possible by PGE’s collaboration with Efficient Drivetrains (EDI).
In 2014, EDI partnered with Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and the California Energy Commission to develop a variety of innovative work truck solutions based upon EDI’s world-first medium-duty PHEV drivetrain. Available in two major configurations—both of which come standard with 35+ miles of all-electric range—the new work truck offers more power and performance than PG&E’s conventional diesel work trucks, while enabling PG&E to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent.
Features include:
• 35+ mile all electric vehicle driving range
• 350+ mile range with Series-Parallel PHEV Drive
• Highway speed of 65+ mph in full electric vehicle mode
• Up to 500 horsepower available in parallel mode
• 24+ hours idle free power for vehicle ePTO, accessories and job site tools
• Continuous AC power export at 120 kilowatts
• Synchronization with grid for live servicing
• Vehicle and telematics data collection
• 2WD/4WD capable in electric or hybrid mode
At the core of all this is power-control software that senses the batteries’ state of charge and the type of driving required, and switches on-the-fly between four different major modes:
• EV mode: batteries provide power for electric motors
• Series mode: internal combustion engine charges batteries
• Parallel mode: internal combustion engine provides additional torque
• Series/Parallel mode: internal combustion engine charges batteries and provides additional torque
This not only dramatically reduces fuel consumption, but enables the power export of up to 120 kW, sufficient to enable the hot-swapping of 80% of the transformers that cover the company’s 70,000 square mile service territory.
So, what lies in the future after these 942 trucks? Other platforms? Other utility customers? Other industries with similar needs? As I like to say, “The answer is always yes.”
Investment Opportunity
Insofar as these folks are looking to raise capital for the expansion of their operations, I’ve recently added them to my list of “cleantech investment opportunities.” I’m not a broker/dealer, so I can’t get involved in marketing securities, but there’s no law against my offering an educated opinion to accredited investors, and I’m not at all shy about that, especially in this case; I’m quite confident that this team will succeed.
If you’re interested in speaking with them, please let me know and I’ll put you in contact with the executive team.
For what it’s worth, my conviction here was solidified when, by chance, I happened to have lunch with Efrain Ornelas, PG&E’s Fleet Engineer of Transportation Services at last weeks’s EV and Grid Summit in Los Angeles. As I wrote to Efrain later that day:
Per our talk at lunch yesterday, I was very impressed with the work you’re doing at PG&E in the migration to electric transportation. What a terrific coincidence that you happen to be working with EDI; for what it’s worth, I completely agree with everything you said, e.g.,
- As the EV industry has consolidated, EDI has benefited by taking on some of the world’s top engineers in this space who may not have otherwise been available.
- The power export feature is critical, and it gets better with each generation. Now it’s solid state, so it weighs a small fraction of what it did before.
- Their overall approach (automatic switching between four different power modes depending on battery SOC and the nature of the driving) is unique, and it provides numerous benefits: most obviously fuel economy, but also lower up-front cost and improved flexibility across different sized vehicles.
Given that 21% of vehicle fuel is consumed by 1% of vehicles i.e. trucks, and that these are the very vehicles most likely to run on diesel engines and hence contribute disproportionately to poor air quality in an urban setting, this technology has the potential to make a substantial contribution to clearing up smog.
The technology would also tend to lend itself to facilitating conversion of urban delivery vehicles to run on LPG by reducing the amount of fuel needing to be carried, and hence making the conversion more attractive in terms of space.
I haven’t looked at the engineering of the EDI drivetrain. That said, what you are quoting sounds like a very focused analysis and subsequent design. I would also suggest that since this particular market niche is nowhere near as price sensitive as consumer light vehicles, that the use of two stage energy storage in this application would be of benefit. Capacitors (supercaps) and the designs for front ending batteries have been around for quite a number of years. The technology and the algorithms are quite good at this point. They are capable of increasing peak current flows and simultaneously reducing the harsh regen environment the batteries might be subjected to. Trucks (large mass) can generate quite a bit of regen if allowed to. Usually, the management programming does not allow anywhere near what the physical system is capable of. Without a study of their design requirements, this might be inapplicable, but I mention the possibility. Works wonderfully in cars. Its the price sensitivity and the view from OEMs that as long as they make the mandated 8 years, who cares what the batteries sustain. In the case of trucks, the economics might be viable.
For reasons that I do not understand, there are few commercial vehicles that use hybrid or electric technology. For example, garbage trucks are constantly stopping and starting and the daily distance they travel is minimal. That would be an ideal application for hybrid or all electric technology. UPS and similar delivery companies are constantly stopping and starting. Many tradesmen, such as plumbers, work only in urban areas where hybrid and electric vehicles would work well. City busses have plenty of room for batteries.
On the other hand, there are some of us to drive very little and the additional expense of ultra efficient technology wouldn’t make much sense. For example, I drive my car only about 2000 miles per year, yet I do want the capability of driving long distances on rare occasions so the standard IC engine and manual transmission do the job just fine.
Link above that’s pointed to by “consume over 21% of our fuel” is broken.
It should point to http://www.freightmobility.com/TruckStats.html not TruckStats.htm
Thanks. I fixed that.
Not that we couldn’t (and shouldn’t) begin today to accelerate the transition of the 750 million IC vehicles to EV’s – beginning with the oldest/least efficient – but it seems these would be very effective for ambulance and rescue/emergency vehicle service.
The need for heavier emergency vehicles like fire trucks, pumpers and the like, could be addressed by the new electric tractor-trailer configuration now produced in Germany. It now appears that no common vehicle type is incapable of transition.
Whether fuel efficiency for emergency vehicles is important would depend on how much they are actually driven and how many there are.
There are about 55,400 fire stations in the US, each with a complement of vehicles, and over ambulances. Fire departments responded to 30,100,000 calls for service in 2011. Two-thirds of those, 19,800,000, were for medical help.
Ambulances in the United States are defined by federal KKK-1822 Standards requirements, which define several categories of ambulances. In addition, most states have additional requirements according to their individual needs.
Type I Ambulances are based on the chassis-cabs of light duty pickup-trucks,
Type II Ambulances are based on passenger/cargo vans, referred to as Vanbulances.
Type III Ambulances are based on chassis-cabs of light duty vans,
AD (Additional Duty) versions of both Type I and Type III designs are also defined. They include increased GVWR, storage and payload capacity.
Not enough to be top priority, but enough to be on the list of things to transition.
I think long-haul trucks, delivery vans and buses should be top priority for decarbonisation.
As Craig stated, “Almost exactly 1% of the motor vehicles in the U.S. are Class 8 trucks (over 33,000 pounds gross vehicle weight), but they consume over 21% of our fuel.”
I would therefore be inclined to agree, MorinMoss, and the new German 18-wheeler EV seems a good potential candidate… providing, of course, that the charging power is sustainably sourced.
If we’re just going to be charging them from coal-burning, it’s not a desirable trade-off. That said, the great feature all quality EV’s hold over petroleum IC’s is that sustainably sourced energy can be used, and therefore quality EV’s facilitate the transition of transportation away from fossil energy.
Yes, it would be good to decarbonize long-haul trucks, but that is more difficult than decarbonizing delivery vans and busses. Hybrid technology would work well for delivery vans and busses because those vehicles are constantly stopping and starting; in that application, regenerative breaking recovers much of the energy that would otherwise be wasted by the brakes. Also, busses have considerable space for batteries so it might even be practical to make busses totally electric.
As for long-haul trucks, they generally operate at a fairly steady speed so hybrid technology would not help much. Batteries cannot store enough energy for really long distance driving. It is unclear how much more efficient truck engines could be made. However, improvements in aerodynamics could significantly improve fuel efficiency.
Much depends on exactly how the vehicles are driven.
Several years ago, it was rumored that Sumitomo would target the heavy vehicle segment with the low-temp molten salt batteries that were supposed to be on the market this year.
But they’ve gone quiet about the tech so it’s another promising tech that’s just not yet ready for prime-time.
Perhaps, but are there any statistics on how much total fuel they use per annum and what the total investment would be to replace them, as they became obsolete, with vehicles which are more fuel efficient?
I’m sure there must be, or they could be generated fairly directly. Do you have serious doubts about the utility of such modernization?
As I said, I don’t recommend them as a top priority, but they should be on the list of things to transition.
In the future, if battery technology improves enough, perhaps all-electric emergency vehicles could become practical, at least in places where long distance travel is not required. All-electric vehicles could be more reliable and require less maintenance because of the simple drive train. But on the basis of fuel efficiency alone I don’t see how there could be much point in it for emergency vehicles.
Another application could be the busses that move passengers between terminals at airports. The distances traveled are short, there is no hill climbing, the speeds are fairly low, and there would be plenty of time to recharge between trips. Thus, the required battery capacity would be modest. Of course on a national bases the amount of fuel saved wouldn’t amount to much, but the low battery capacity and low power requirements would keep the invest cost low so perhaps it could be justified on a cost basis.
In my area many of these electric utility trucks already carry an additional IC engine and generator to provide emergency power on site. The configuration is also seen on some RV. The potential to use this as in a series hybrid configuration seems like not much of a technological transition. I have also wondered at the potential to use this compartment in an optional configuration as either the IC generator or a larger battery.
But how much power do the additional IC engine provide? If it is only 5KW or so, it would be insufficient for a series hybrid. On the other hand, if it is 100KW, it would be more than sufficient for a series hybrid.
How does this stack up with VIA Motors PHEV trucks?
The companies were founded by the same people, and have numerous technologies and philosophies in common. Having said that, as far as I’m aware, EDI has the sole control of this specific drivetrain with the two clutches, the four different modes, the software to make all this happen transparent to the driver, etc.