Changes Ahead For Some Of The Largest Vehicles

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- We're all familiar with hybrid cars.  Now, as Mike Schuh reports, charge is coming to some of the largest vehicles on the road.

The "workhorses" are the trucks that get things from warehouses to stores to businesses.  Truckers are thankful if they get nine miles a gallon.  So what do you think their reaction would be to getting 13 or 17 miles a gallon?

"Huge number, huge number," said Mike Stark.

New hybrid trucks do just that, but they cost an additional $25,000 to $45,000.  Will fuel savings offset that price bump?

"It does offset, but the key question is, in what time period?" said Mark Lampert, vice president of Diamler Trucks.

It takes 14 years to break even, longer than the life of the truck.  So the feds asked what if, to get this technology moving, they subsidized the extra costs.

"No state money in this, but we put in a grant for federal stimulus dollars," said Malcolm Woolf, Maryland Energy Administration.

Six million dollars is putting 143 trucks on Maryland roads, so 14 percent of this truck company's total hybrid production will be in Maryland.

"So this puts wheels on the ground, vehicles like this in customers' hands to prove the technology, to prove the savings in fuel economy," Lampert said.

Aramark got 68 trucks, Sysco 25, Deer Park 25 and UPS is getting 20.  But these are state-of-the-art prototypes, storing and releasing pressurized fluid, an idea worth a 70 percent mileage increase.

"There are so many great things about this technology that we're excited about," Stark said.

They are so new, there are only a dozen of these in the world.  And remember, burning less fuel means less pollution. If this technology catches on, the long-term benefit could be cleaner air for everyone.

Overall, those 143 trucks in Maryland are estimated to save nearly 140,000 gallons of fuel per year.