The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE)’s National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently completed a performance evaluation report
that showed significant fuel economy benefits of hybrid electric delivery vans
compared to similar conventional vans.
“During the on-road portion of our study, the hybrid vans
demonstrated a 13 to 20 percent higher fuel economy than the conventional
vans,” said NREL Project Engineer Michael Lammert. “During dynamometer testing,
three standard drive cycles were chosen to represent the range of delivery
routes. The hybrids showed a 13 to 36 percent improvement in fuel economy and
up to a 45 percent improvement in ton-miles-per-gallon. This wide range in fuel
economy is largely dependent on drive cycle.”