EPA, UPS join to launch eco-friendly hybrid trucks

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Brown is going green.

UPS will order delivery trucks powered by an eco-friendly hydraulic hybrid system.

1 of 2 Embracing technology developed by federal engineers, UPS will order a handful of new delivery trucks powered by a hydraulic hybrid system that saves fuel and cuts carbon emissions.

The Environmental Protection Agency holds many of the patents on the innovative technology, which was developed in an EPA fuel-emissions lab in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with the help of engineers from Eaton Corp., which designs hydraulics systems.

"This vehicle to my right may look like a brown package truck that you'd see every day in your neighborhood," said UPS Chief Operating Officer David Abney, standing beside a prototype of the hybrid truck at a news conference Monday. "But underneath the hood is a whole different kind of technology."

The trucks combine a diesel engine with a unique hydraulic propulsion system that replaces the conventional drivetrain and transmission. Using hydraulic pumps and storage tanks, the vehicle captures and stores energy the way a battery does on an electric hybrid car.

The motor converts pressure from the hydraulic fluid into rotating power for the wheels and uses stored energy to accelerate the vehicle, thereby recovering more than 70 percent of the energy normally wasted during braking.

This design, ideal for city driving's stops and starts, allows the diesel engine to be shut off when the vehicle is stopped or decelerating. In road testing a hydraulic hybrid truck in suburban Detroit, Michigan, the EPA found the vehicle used 40 to 50 percent less fuel than conventional diesel trucks while reducing carbon emissions by one

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