Development of New Light Duty Hybrid Truck 2012-01-1985

Hino Motors, Ltd. (Hino) launched the world's first hybrid city bus in 1991. Since then, the same hybrid technology has been refined and applied to a range of commercial vehicles, from city and tour buses to light and medium duty trucks, expanding the commercial hybrid vehicle line up. After 20 years of refining this technology, in 2011 Hino launched an all new light duty hybrid truck in Japan. An alternate version of the truck was developed to meet the particular needs of the North American market, differing from the Japanese model in several important features. The Japanese model's automated manual transmission was replaced with a fully automatic transmission, and the motor and inverter specifications were altered. This paper outlines the development process and introduces various characteristics of the technologies employed in the North American hybrid model. Its focus is primarily on the performance evaluation process and results, including initial market survey, internal on-road testing, chassis dynamometer testing and in-use demonstration.