- NEWS
- Grammy Awards a night of triumph, sorrow 3 hours & 11 minutes ago
- Obama to visit Corona del Mar on Thursday
- O.C.-based international aid group turns 40
- Wedded couples re-tie at Knott’s 3 hours & 42 minutes ago
- SPORTS
- Lakers edge past Toronto, end trip 3-3 3 hours & 26 minutes ago
- Perry’s hat trick too much for Jackets 3 hours & 25 minutes ago
- Ex-Angel Hudler joins K.C. Royals TV booth 3 hours & 25 minutes ago
- Stanford hands USC its 20th defeat
- BUSINESS
- ENTERTAINMENT
- Feb. 13 celebrity birthdays
- Grammy Awards a night of triumph, sorrow 3 hours & 9 minutes ago
- Young the Giant impresses at first major headlining show
- Whitney Houston: The Voice over the years 2 hours & 15 minutes ago
- LIFE
- TRAVEL
- OPINION
Smog agency: $45 million in stim funds will fast-track hybrid trucks
August 12th, 2009, 4:44 pm · 14 Comments · posted by Pat Brennan, science, environment editor
The region’s smog control agency will spend $90 million — half of that federal stimulus dollars — to fast-track development of hybrid trucks and buses for Southern California fleets, including at least one in Orange County. 
The hybrids will be developed over the next two years under the guidance of the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Diamond Bar.
The trucks will be plug-in gasoline-electric hybrids, and will include utility and delivery trucks as well as shuttle buses. Building them could also spur larger economic effects.
“If these become commercialized, now there are opportunities for utilities to start putting in more infrastructure,” said Matt Miyasato, assistant deputy executive officer at the air district. “They have to plug in somewhere. There’s a potential for more jobs in that arena.”
The Orange County Transportation Authority hopes to acquire a shuttle bus produced under the project, and Southern California Edison also plans to use some of the trucks.
The smog agency is using a $45.4 million grant from the Department of Energy, part of an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act program meant to speed development of new batteries and electric vehicles.
The other half of the $90 million includes $32 million from agencies that would purchase the trucks and $5 million from the California Energy Commission, as well as contributions from the plug-in hybrid system’s producers and the non-profit Electric Power Research Institute.
While prototype versions of the hybrid truck technology exist — President Obama examined one on a recent trip to a Southern California Edison facility in Pomona — the technology will have to be fine-tuned to make it practical for uses by a variety of agencies, Miyasato said.
The Orange County Transportation Authority, which already uses a number of hybrid vehicles, plans to acquire at least one hybrid-electric shuttle bus, said Antonio Chavira, the agency’s manager of maintenance.
“We’re excited about it,” Chavira said. “The technology is proven, and they can expand upon it.”
Other agencies hope to use “bucket” trucks and heavy-duty pickup trucks, Miyasato said.
“The devil’s always in the details,” Miyasato said. “We have to optimize the whole system so it works for different applications. It’s not off-the-shelf technology by any means.”
Eaton Corp. of Galesburg, Michigan, will produce the hybrid systems, and work with Ford Motor Co. to create the vehicles, he said.
About 50 fleets could purchase the trucks nationwide, including 14 in California and five in the south coast air basin, which includes Orange County.
The smog agency, which will oversee the project, plans to have 300 of the vehicles on the road by 2011, Miyasato said.
Edison plans to use 40 of the hybrid “bucket” trucks throughout its service area, said Ed Kjaer, director of electric transportation. They could allow the utility company to work at night because the arm and bucket would run on electric power so the trucks won’t have to idle.
“We can actually be doing work on the distribution system at night, in stealth mode, and we’re not disrupting the community,” Kjaer said.
(Photo of President Obama examining prototype hybrid truck at an Edison facility in Pomona, and of Eaton’s “bucket truck,” courtesy AQMD.)
Latest posts:
Reader Comments
Comments are encouraged, but you must follow our User Agreement.- Keep it civil and stay on topic.
- No profanity, vulgarity, racial slurs or personal attacks.
- People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked.
14 Comments
-
ADVERTISEMENT
-
-
-
-
16th annual People’s Choice
From your favorite restaurants and shops to the best day spa in town, here are your choices for the number one places to eat, shop and play in O.C.
Browse the 2009 Best of Orange County winners-
ADVERTISEMENT
Good money for trendy ideas. Spend a dollar to save a dime. And you wonder why the State and County is going broke. Wait! Then they will raise the property taxes!
The lefts contempt for the taxpayers dollar showing it’s ugly head. What’s astonishing, the 100′s of billions of dollars waisted on car pool lanes. Thats the tip of the iceberg that destroys economies.
FedEx has had Hybrid trucks for over three years now, what took them so long???????
Why are they not using this with diesel engine technology? Diesels are much more efficient and can be used with biofuels. Gas Truck Hybrids is an oxymoron.
Here’s another crux to the matter: the air districts are already forcing utilities and fleet vehicles to upgrade to clean-air diesels with particulate filters on the tailpipes. Fleets like SoCal Edison, your water district, and others have to spend $10,000 on a particulate filter cleaning station, and up to $100,000 per truck to retrofit older models.
So when someone says: ““If these become commercialized, now there are opportunities for utilities to start putting in more infrastructure,” What they really mean is there will be a huge burden on the owners/operators of fleets which will need to be passed down to the CONSUMER.
In five to ten years, the current diesel mandates will be obsolete (even though the vehicles are road-worthy) and the air districts will force fleets to once again update to hybrid technology through a legislative act.
And the beat (fleecing) goes on.
More Obama stimulus money down the drain. Who can give to the rich and take from the working man, Slime ball Obama can.
More flushed dollars. The overall effect on air quality is infinitesimal.
Yet So Cal Edison will turn around and spend hundreds of thousands on TV ads to tell us what a great, wonderful, Green utility there are.
“Look at us! We have hybrid trucks! Yippee!
Ohhh and by the way…your rates are rising.
Love and kisses! —So Cal Edison”
It is unbelievable.
90 Million to FAST TRACK development of technology that already exists , GM and Ford already hit the Fed’s up three times for government money to develop these trucks, now they need 90 million more, just to study it some more, Millions and millions spent, still no actual trucks, what a joke!!!
Moving to nuclear power will save a LOT more in carbon emissions than toying around with these hybrid vehicles. Why do we spend so much time and money on band aids like this, when nuclear energy is plentiful (and then it will also make electric cars cheap to run).
Because to Liberal Democrats, nuclear is, to put it in scientific terms they understand, “yucky” and “icky”.
You need to update your references. Nuclear power is not the cheap option it once was. There’s a reason why companies are building wind turbines like mad and no new nuclear plants have been constructed in decades.
People, you should really think for more than 5 seconds before posting illogical nonsense.
- Carpool lanes on avg transport more people than regular lanes, and so are inherently more efficient and taxpayer friendly
- Hybrid engines are usually gas hybrids because Diesel engines carry an additional cost on top of the hybrid drive train. Diesel engines could be hybridized too, though.
- So Cal Edison or other agencies buying a few trucks will be an insignificant part of their operating budget. The effect on air quality may be negligible, but so will the effect on utility rates.
- Nuclear power is irrelevant with respect to vehicles because fully electric cars are still not available. If they were, they would already be significantly cleaner than combustion engine cars whether or not they are recharged with power from nuclear plants.
I’d love to see the data on point 1. I think you are WAY wrong.
2. true enough.
3. Hapless old me. $90 million used to be a fair-sized chunk of money. But, you know, 90 mill here, 90 there…pretty soon you find yourself up Deficit Creek without a paddle.
4. “If they were…” But they are not.
1. Doing a google search turns up many reports on HOV lane efficieny. When there is congestion, every car in the carpool lane is going to have at least 2 people whereas prettymuch every car in the general lanes will only have 1, assuming the carpool lane is traveling at least marginally faster. It doesn’t take a lot to realize how they move more people.
3. If you read the article, only $32 million is coming from the companies who are to purchase to the trucks, and that is ALL the companies combined. So Cal Edison is putting in a few million at most which is a tiny fraction of their operating expenses.
4. Yeah- electric cars are not yet available. That was my point. Advocating for more nuclear power to recharge cars when electric cars don’t exist yet makes zero sense.