Hybrid Truck Testing

This page last updated July 16, 2012

In the Fiscal Year 2011-12 AQIP Funding Plan, ARB allocated funds to the U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for the testing of hybrid heavy-duty trucks. This testing supports ARB’s investment in hybrid trucks through the Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project and updates to ARB’s heavy-duty hybrid test procedures. The results of this study will improve the performance of commercial hybrid vehicles and help estimate the real world benefits of advanced hybrid truck technology in California. This study will allow ARB to strategically match advanced propulsion systems to duty cycles to optimize for emissions reductions, fuel economy, and return on grant funding or fleet capital investment.

Specific project objectives are:

Characterize in-use drive-cycles of various vocations from vehicles in normal commercial service.

Conduct laboratory emissions testing on a sampling of vehicles to allow an accurate estimation of vocational emissions inventories and fuel consumption metrics.

Validate the laboratory testing with fuel economy and exhaust emissions data collected from a sampling of the vehicles in-use and in real-world operation.

Develop a methodology which will estimate fuel economy values based on specific vocational duty cycles. This will provide additional estimation capabilities for future deployments.

Collect data to supplement an existing, non-fleet specific database for storing known and specific characteristics of vocational duty cycles that will allow for improved assessment of power train tradeoffs (e.g. energy storage capacity, component sizing).

Project Statement of Work (PDF 457KB)

Request For Voluntary Participation In California Air Resources Board Funded Research On Drive Cycle And Exhaust Emissions Of Hybrid Trucks (PDF 30KB)