Volvo Displays ‘Green’ Trucks to Run on Alternative Fuels
By Frederick Kiel, Staff Reporter
This story appears in the March 17 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
WASHINGTON — Global truck producer Volvo AB recently demonstrated trucks that can run on one of seven different alternative fuels, but company officials said they could not forecast when an over-the-road model of any of these seven trucks might be available.
The company, corporate parent of Volvo Trucks North America and Mack Trucks, displayed the vehicles at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference here March 5.
The trucks could run on biodiesel, synthetic diesel, methanol/ethanol, biogas, hy-drogen and biogas, biogas and biodiesel, and dimethyl ether, or DME.
“The reason we can’t say when any of these trucks will go into production is that we’re not a fuel company,” VTNA spokesman James Mc-Namara told Transport Topics. “We’re depending on the private sector and governments to decide which fuel is best.”
Leif Johansson, chief executive officer of Volvo AB, said his company’s prototypes, which also included a hybrid electric heavy-duty truck, were built in partnership with the U.S. and Swedish governments “to end the uncertainty among fuel producers and others in the business” that they could develop a new fuel and not know if the technology existed to build engines for them.
Johansson once again called for governments and the private sector to decide upon a common fuel, if not globally, then at least by region. He first urged a common fuel policy when Volvo introduced the trucks at an international event last September in Brussels, Belgium (10-1, p. 1).
He said each of the trucks could be “driven without any net contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.”
In the bilateral partnership, the U.S. Air Force already has been running test versions of the heavy-duty electric hybrid.
In a speech at the conference, President Bush praised the public-private Volvo partnership as an “amazing joint venture with Mack and Volvo on these giant trucks that are using biodiesel to power them.”
“Technology is changing,” Bush said. “Five years ago, those trucks would not have been available for people at this exhibit to look at. Today, they’re on the road. As a matter of fact, the United States Air Force is using these kinds of trucks.”
Anthony Greszler, vice president for advanced engineering of Volvo Powertrain North America, told TT, “Nearly all of these fuels can run in diesel engines with modifications, but some wouldn’t be appropriate for longhaul.”
Greszler said synthetic diesel and the combination of biogas and biodiesel were promising for longhaul trucking.
Paul Vikner, chief executive officer of Mack Trucks Inc., said at one of the International Renewable Energy Conference seminars, “Even if a longhaul engine does not cut fuel use as much as other applications [up to 50%], it would still be important.”
“A hybrid-electric longhaul could reduce diesel use by 5% to 8%, and that is important when you consider that over-the-road trucking makes up the largest percentage of heavy-truck mileage in North America,” Vikner said.
Another important determination, he said, was that “the percentage of fuel costs in running a trucking operation has gone up from 9% in 2002 to 35% today.”
“I cannot give you an exact date at this point for when Mack hybrid trucks will be commercially available,” Mack spokesman John Walsh told TT, “but as the cost of diesel rises, the technology becomes increasingly attractive in longhaul applications, as well.”
