Wal-Mart Helps Peterbilt Develop World's First Hybrid Big Rig

Model 386 Photos

Wal-Mart could save $9,000 in diesel per year, per truck. Think about the reduction in carbon emissions! (Photo: Peterbilt)

Eventually, the hybrid system will be available on other models, such as this Model 330. (Photo: Peterbilt)

Retail giant Wal-Mart is helping to reduce its impact on the environment with new hybrid trucks. (Photo: Peterbilt)

A little less than four months ago, the world’s largest retail chain, Wal-Mart,announced that it would be launching an environmental plan to reduce its environmental footprint. “Sustainability 360”, as it’s called, outlines a number of different sub-projects, such as reducing the amount of packaging that it uses for its products, and selling (and using) energy-efficient lighting. Not surprisingly, a good deal of the plan focused on the transportation side of things. Wal-Mart has requested that its suppliers cut down on the amount of packaging, citing that a 5-percent reduction would be the equivalent of taking 213,000 trucks off the road, and thereby saving 67 million gallons of diesel fuel per year. Perhaps the most significant part about this is that Wal-Mart has actually taken things into their own hands, and has pledged to make its fleet of trucks more efficient.

Taking a page from the auto industry, Wal-Mart began to inquire about hybrid vehicles. If regular cars could be turned into lean, green energyefficient machines by pairing batteries and electric motors to regular engines, why couldn’t trucks? Wal-Mart teamed up with legendary big rig maker Peterbilt, which in turn worked in collaboration with Eaton (perhaps best known for their superchargers) to develop this groundbreaking system. Though Peterbilt might not be the first to develop a commercial hybrid truck (Hino showed off its cab-over hybrid truck a few days ago), it’s the first of its type for Class 8 (big-rig) trucks. Overall, the hybrid system is expected to shave $9,000 per year, per truck in diesel fuel from the bottom line alone.

The Peterbilt Model 386, 330 and 335 hybrid trucks operate in much the same way that a regular gasoline-electric hybrid car works.When the driver steps on the brake pedal, the motor-generator re-captures energy that would otherwise be wasted, and converts it back into electricity that charges the batteries. That electrical power can then be used to provide the electric motor with more juice, or, provide power to electrical ancillary devices. Furthermore, the Peterbilt is a true full hybrid, which means that under certain conditions it can run on battery power alone. Imagine that, a completely noiseless 18-wheeler!

Peterbilt has yet to release official information about the truck’s power output, or even info about the kind of batteries they’re going to be using, but this won’t be available for a while considering that this is the first of its type. The company certainly wouldn’t want to divulge such information to the competition with such a great deal of time before the truck hits the road.

This in mind, the first of the hybrid big rigs is expected to enter production in 2009.