IBM's Major New Truck Study

IBM is announcing a major new study on the future of the trucking industry.

Host: Transportation drives our economy. Our stores and factories are reliant on the movement of goods but those benefits also come with a cost. Trucks use more than 20% of on-road energy. They produce almost half the nitrous oxide emissions but they are also getting too expensive to run. With 70% of the world’s population living in cities by the year 2050, these problems are rapidly intensifying. The time is right for a change. One answer is the growing move of truck and fleet owners to adapt hybrid truck systems, a revolution in harnessing excess vehicle energy by storing it in a specialized battery or accumulator that can then power the driveline and other systems in the truck. Simply putting as few as 10,000 hybrid trucks on the road would reduce diesel fuel use by 7.2 million gallons per year and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 83,000 tons. IBM Vice President Sanjay Rishi recently introduced the comprehensive study called Truck 2020 that provides insights on the imperatives facing the trucking industry. Sanjay Rishi: It’s clearly the closest viable choice to today’s fossil fuel based internal combustion engines. The truck industry has been long disparaged for its environmental record. It now stands to make a significant contribution to energy independence and to reduction of carbon emissions. Host: Here is how it works. Basically, a hybrid electric vehicle combines an internal combustion engine with an electric motor powered by batteries. Both the engine and the motor can drive the wheels which generate energy upon braking that can then be stored in a battery and use to power the vehicle and run other systems such as the raising and lowering of the bucket on the utility truck. Instead of keeping the engine idling, the electrical energy stored in the battery can power the auxiliary systems saving fuel and dramatically cutting emission. Companies like FedEx and UPS stand a benefit by making frequent stops and starts much more economical. Utility trucks can use the technology to reduce or eliminate engine idling and use the battery power for tools and latch. Gathering at Atlanta this week are more then 400 leading truck manufactures, suppliers and fleet focused on producing medium and heavy-duty hybrid electric, hybrid hydraulic, plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles for commercial and military use, all working together as part of the hybrid truck users forum. HTUF ran by CALSTART and supported by IBM and the southern company. Bill Van Amburg: The HTUF Conference is critically important for a variety of reasons. Obviously, these new technologies help us tackle carbon and reduce emissions in our urban regions and help reduce fuel use. Well, even more importantly to this country right now, these are high-tech jobs that are being driven into the truck industry. Eight years ago, we had no hybrid technology. Today, almost every truck maker has a hybrid product. We’re also seeing plug-in and battery electric. High efficiency trucks will be one of those green tech sectors that will help transform not just the truck industry but our nation.