Hybrid-electric vehicles not yet ready for the battlefield.

AuthorIrwin, Sandra I.

More than 20 years after the Army first experimented with hybrid-electric vehicles, none has been fielded yet. But as the Army increasingly is compelled to lower fuel consumption and improve the overall performance of its tactical trucks, a consensus is emerging that hybrid engines may be the way to go.

The Army's National Automotive Center already has been testing a hodgepodge of hybrid-electric military vehicles, including armored personnel carriers and heavy-duty trucks.

But the Army's position is that it does not want to be a proverbial guinea pig for unproven technologies and is hesitant to commit to a production contract until the commercial industry begins mass-producing hybrid-electric vehicles. Auto giants Toyota and Honda only recently have introduced hybrid-electric cars into the commercial market.

Most of the hybrid power drives the Army is testing today involve some combination of a diesel engine and an energy-storage device such as batteries or capacitors. Experts said that the poor performance of the current generation of batteries poses a considerable technical roadblock. For the most part, batteries available today don't last long enough nor can they endure the extreme weather conditions specified for military equipment. One industry source noted that, every time he talks to military commanders about propulsion and power, inevitably the comment heard is that "batteries are the number-one problem."

In the meantime, the Army plans to continue research and development efforts, and will spend several million dollars to expand ongoing experiments assess the state of the technology.

Richard E. McClelland, the director of the U.S. Army's Tank-Automotive Armaments Research, Development and Engineering Center, said his agency will spend about $5 million this year to buy several hybrid-electric vehicles and get them "in the hands of troops" as quickly as possible.

It is important for soldiers to be given an opportunity to try out the vehicles and determine whether they in fact deliver what they promise, before the Army decides on long-term buys, McClelland explained.

The $5 million will cover an array of light, medium and heavy trucks, as well as combat vehicles, all of which would be shipped to field units by late 2003, he said.

Skepticism abounds when it comes to hybrid-electric vehicles, McClelland said. Military commanders don't want to rake untested technologies to war. The experimentation that TARDEC is funding, he said, "should break the ice," particularly if the Army plans to install a hybrid-electric engine in the Future Combat System. The service does not want the FCS to be the first hybrid-electric fielded vehicle that the troops ever operated.

Many of the hybrid power drives the Army is testing claim about 10-25 percent more fuel efficiency than conventional diesel power packs, particularly in frequent start-and-stop scenarios.

To lower the fuel consumption more drastically, the Army will have to consider using fuel cells, experts noted.

Hydrogen fuel cells are a tough sell, however, said McClelland, because the Army wants to be able to power them with existing fuels, rather than hydrogen. "We are not even close to having a fuel cell that can burn Army tactical fuels," he said. Altogether, the Army is spending $10 million this fiscal...

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