Paccar, California government roll out electricity-powered class-8 truck

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (May 28) — The agency that oversees air pollution controls in California rolled out the first hybrid-electric heavy-duty class 8 truck yesterday, the result of a public-private partnership to explore alternatives to diesel engines.

Truckmaker Paccar Inc. and San Diego-based ISE Research Corp. led the development of the Hybrid Electric Prototype Truck, or HEPT. The California Air Resources Board, which sets the strictest emissions standards in the U.S., helped fund the project.

The HEPT vehicle uses a Kenworth T-800B chassis and replaces the diesel engine with a smaller, natural gas-powered engine to run a generator, which provides power to the vehicle’s electric drive motor and battery packs.

The truck will enter operational service with a waste-disposal firm in Burbank, Calif. A second HEPT prototype will be built in collaboration with Peterbilt Motors Co., sister company to Kenworth within Paccar.

Similar hybrid engine technology is being tested in transit buses around Southern California.

CARB said it contributed $350,000 in 1997 to project because “it showed the potential to provide an important step in the effort to reduce diesel exhaust’s public health threat.”

Last year, CARB was involved in a $1 billion US settlement between the U.S. government and six manufacturers of diesel engines. CARB, the U.S. Justice Department, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency alleged that the companies violated emissions rules by selling engines that were programmed to pass tests in a laboratory, but to “defeat” pollution controls at highway speeds.

CARB received one-fourth of an $83.4-million civil penalty the manufacturers agreed to pay. It was the largest civil penalty in environmental enforcement history.