BRENTWOOD, 26 February, 2004—Ford Motor Company is to join forces with the Department for Transport, Ricardo Consulting Engineers, Valeo SA and the Gates Corporation in a £1.2 million government-funded research project to develop the first medium-sized commercial vehicle in Europe equipped with belt-driven integrated starter generator (ISG) technology. Within this project, the research engineers will focus on investigating an affordable hybrid solution that achieves the maximum fuel economy benefit.

 

FORD TRANSIT DIESEL-ELECTRIC HYBRID

RESEARCH PROJECT LAUNCHED

The programme, announced today at Ford’s Southampton Transit van assembly plant by David Jamieson MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, will run for one year with the aim of demonstrating the potential environmental benefits of using a new type of micro-hybrid technology in a commercial vehicle application. It is anticipated fuel consumption on a real world usage basis could be improved by 15 to 25 per cent.

It is hoped to make the case for a more affordable – and potentially commercially successful – powertrain solution, which offers significant improvements in fuel economy and tailpipe emissions.

Although the view under the bonnet of the Southampton-built Transit will look little different from the standard diesel version, the ’HyTrans’ will incorporate a number of technological advances including:

 

• A regenerative braking system which will convert waste braking energy into stored electrical energy.
• An automatic engine stop/start system that operates at traffic lights or in queuing traffic, as well as during vehicle stops associated with urban delivery functions.

Pete Pethers, director of Ford’s Vehicle Environmental Engineering department, which is co-ordinating the Ford involvement said: "This project provides an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the potential environmental benefits of using this type of hybrid technology. The normal usage pattern of a commercial vehicle in the urban environment makes a commercial vehicle like Transit the ideal choice to prove the potential benefits of features such as regenerative braking. We would hope at the end of our trials that we can make the business case for ‘micro- hybrid’ technology to go into production at some time in the future."

The ’HyTrans’ demonstrator will be used by all of the project partners to demonstrate the real world fuel economy potential of the system when operated under recognised Ford Transit customer usage patterns. At the same time they will be using the data gathered to calibrate and refine the hybrid system design and operation to maximise its potential.

"This initiative is backed by the government’s New Vehicle Technology Fund which allows us to fit the Fund into the bigger climate change picture through the development of a fuel efficient, low carbon emission vehicle which is good for the driver and good for the environment," said David Jamieson.

Roger Putnam, chairman of Ford of Britain, commented: "We are delighted to be working with our partners on this exciting programme. Ford is an active member of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, through which we actively work towards producing vehicles and production processes which have lower carbon fuel energy requirements."

1. The belt-driven integrated starter generator (ISG) used by Ford is referred to as a belt-driven combined starter-alternator by Valeo and Ricardo

    

2. An accompanying Transit image is available on www.media.ford.com 

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