Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

Unless you’re a trucker you probably have NO idea what I’m talking about.  And no, the Yard Dog I’m referring to is not Fido.

Yard Dog is trucker lingo for little short specialized power units used to move trailers around big holding yards or distribution centers.  Years and years ago I worked at a WalMart distribution center and one of my buddies drove the yard dog.  He’d go outside and move the empty trailers away from the docks and replace them with full trailers.

Some one has now hybridized a yard dog.

Capacity of Texas has introduced a Pluggable Hybrid Electric Terminal Tractor (PHETT). The PHETT is a charge-sustaining series hybrid that utilizes a 40 hp constant rate generator to supply power, reducing fuel consumption by 60% and audible db by 30%.

This makes quiet a bit of sense to me.  Yard dogs generally don’t go very fast nor very far.  How can they being that they normally never get on a road way.  They spend their lives in the “yard”, a big parking lot.  Such being the case electricity could be made readily available.  When not actively working the yard dog could be recharging.

In fact I’m not sure why they even made it a hybrid.   But they did.

Read the whole story at Green Car Congress.

A hydrogen fuel cell powered plug in hybrid Class Eight Truck.

A fuel cell is a device that takes a “fuel” (normally hydrogen gas) and produces water vapor and electricity as it’s only output.

Pretty neat.  Only problem is that they cost a LOT and that hydrogen is an extremely difficult material to work with.

Nonetheless this company has developed a short haul truck that takes advantage of same.

I wish them luck.  They’re going to need it.

I sure would like to have that kind of torque though.  Three thousand foot pounds….WOW>

It’s been a long time since I first mentioned the idea of a hybrid truck. Since then things have been happening.

A brief search on Google provides this.

Additionally we have Peterbilt

August 22, 2007, Bellevue, Washington – PACCAR and Eaton Corporation announced today that they have entered into an agreement to jointly develop proprietary hybrid technology for heavy-duty commercial vehicles in North America. The innovative new products will be introduced exclusively in Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks in the North American market, targeted for initial production by the end of 2009.

Read the rest of this entry »