Parker Hannifin’s RunWise Drivetrain Powers Xpeditor E3s for Florida Fleets

In 2006, Parker Hannifin engaged Emaginit to name its new drive train. Emaginit named it: RunWise.

Hydraulic hybrid drive supplier Parker Hannifin and Autocar Truck are moving toward commercial production of Autocar’s Xpeditor E3 with Parker’s fuel-saving RunWise drive next year — 11 pre-production vehicles have just been delivered to three South Florida fleets following a two-route, 2,500-household trial in western Miami-Dade County.

Miami, Miami-Dade, and Hialeah are taking one, six, and four of the trucks, respectively.

RunWise, Parker says, “replaces a refuse truck’s conventional drive train with a series hybrid drive system that marries the variable features of a hydrostatic drive, ideal for urban routes, with the efficient performance of a mechanical drive that performs best at highway speeds… “Fuel consumption is reduced 30% to 50%.”

“These deliveries,” said Parker Hannifin Hydraulics Group president Jeff Cullman, “represent the first commercial use of this technology.”

“It is a very cool technology,” says Vance Zanardelli, energy recovery business unit manager under Cullman.

“We’ve got a system that’s twice as powerful as any of our competitors,” Zanardelli says, the key being “the most efficient pumps in the business.” Parker also claims proprietary software that allows for seamless shifting and smoother braking, improving drivability.

“We’re able to put down significantly more torque off the line,” he told F&F ShowTimes. “Drivers can do whatever they want to do,” he says, and fuel savings have been “pretty con­sistent around the 40% range.”

“This is a no-compromise approach,” Zanardelli says, forecasting a seven-year payback strictly on fuel and maintenance savings. “It’s not something that requires government stimulus.”

“It’s very rare that you get something like this that has a compelling value proposition right out of the box,” he says. “I think it’s going to really change the industry.”

Carbon fiber accumulator shells for the 5,000-psi Parker System are thus far being supplied by Lincoln Composites.

The vehicles for the Florida fleets were supplied by the Palmetto Truck Center in Miami.

The next sales are likely to be in the South Florida area too, says Autocar applications engineering director Mark Neale, noting that his firm and Parker have support personnel located there.

Among them is Doug Yglesias, formerly of Palmetto Truck and now with Parker Hannifin.

Parker notes that the U.S. EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich. has “played a significant role in pioneering hydraulic hybrid technology and partnered with Parker and Autocar in the early testing of these vehicles.”

Tests of the RunWise hybrid over five years have shown a 45% fuel savings, says Autocar sales VP Cliff Buck, with brake life extended 800 to 900%. Instead of every 90 days, “Now you’re going to be doing a brake job every two and a half years,” he says.

Buck told F&F ShowTimes that the Parker drive is by far the most robust on the market.

An Autocar Xpeditor E3 refuse truck with the Parker Hannifin RunWise hydraulic drive is in today’s ride-and-drive.

Autocar Will Offer CNG-Fueled E3 in 2011

Autocar Trucks will launch a compressed natural gas-fueled version of its Xpeditor E3 with Parker Hannifin RunWise hydraulic hybrid drivetrain in late summer 2011, sales VP Cliff Buck said at the WasteCon 2010 show in Boston last month.

“This time next year, mid-summer, we intend to introduce the hybrid RunWise system on CNG power,” Buck told F&F ShowTimes, and customers, at WasteCon.

CNG emits better than 20% less greenhouse gas than diesel, Buck says. Autocar already claims the lead in Class 8 low cab forward refuse trucks powered by natural gas, as it expects to deliver more than 1,000 such trucks in 2010, approximately double its volume of two years ago.

Original article from “Fleets & Fuels Show Times Blog”