Daimler Sustainability Report 2010 - Daimler Sustainability Report ...

In recent decades, by further developing engines and
optimizing transmissions and drive trains, we have
reduced the fuel consumption of conventional diesel
engines for commercial vehicles by more than one-third.
In addition, the diesel technology known as BLUETEC
increases efficiency and reduces pollutant emissions,
thus cutting fuel consumption by 2 to 5 percent. D A
NGT (Natural Gas Technology). The natural gas drive
system is an alternative to conventional drives from both
an economic and an ecological point of view. Besides
containing less carbon than normal gasoline or diesel
fuel, natural gas also produces less pollutant emissions
during combustion. The disadvantages currently associated
with natural gas vehicles are the need to store the
required fuel in heavy pressurized tanks and the limited
fuel infrastructure. This is why our NGT vehicles are
equipped with a bivalent drive system that can run on
either natural gas or premium-grade gasoline. The technology
is presently available in the Mercedes-Benz
B 180 NGT BlueEFFICIENCY.
Due to the limited range of the natural gas drive, its main
area of application in commercial vehicles is city driving,
where it offers a good alternative to diesel engines. The
new Mercedes-Benz Sprinter NGT with a bivalent natural
gas drive was introduced on the market in 2008. The
Mercedes-Benz Citaro CNG is built as both a single and
an articulated bus with a natural gas engine. At present,
more than 900 Econic NGT vehicles throughout Europe
are being used for municipal, delivery, and garbage
collection services. Since 2000, Freightliner Custom
Chassis Corporation (FCCC) has delivered 1,300 natural
gas-powered vehicles based on the MT-45 walk-in van.
Model-specific hybrid modules. The combination of
optimized combustion engines with customized hybrid
modules makes it possible to further reduce fuel consumption
and CO2 emissions. The hybrid possibilities
include various modules ranging from the start-stop
function and boosting to energy recovery and all-electric
driving. Especially in city driving, the combination of a
high-tech combustion engine and an electric motor can
generate fuel savings of up to 20 percent. When used
along with efficiency-boosting BlueEFFICIENCY measures,
even greater savings can be achieved. Vehicles
with the start-stop feature have been available since
2007, and additional hybrid solutions have been on the
market since the summer of 2009 in the S 400 HYBRID
and the ML 450 HYBRID. We intend to launch at least
one hybrid model per year in the future, including vehicles
with diesel engines.
Yet another step forward in the development of hybrid
drives is the Vision S 500 Plug-in HYBRID. Equipped with
a plug-in battery that can be recharged at charging stations,
the vehicle can be driven up to 30 kilometers (19
miles) solely on electric power. Before the series pro-
Environmental protection,
innovation, and safety
duction stage is reached, however, there is still work to
be done on the design of the components. In addition,
external recharging of the battery requires a sufficiently
extensive infrastructure of charging stations.
Combinations of combustion engines and electric motors
are also proving their worth in commercial vehicles.
Depending on the specific applications and vehicle
types, a combustion engine and an electric motor can be
operated either individually (serial hybrid) or in tandem
(parallel hybrid). Irrespective of the vehicle’s size, trucks
are equipped with a parallel hybrid drive, while urban
buses rely on a serial system, such as the one used in
the Citaro G BlueTec Hybrid. Hybrid drive systems display
their superior fuel efficiency most clearly in city
traffic. But depending on the topography involved,
hybrid systems can also reduce the fuel consumption of
vehicles on short-range distribution and longdistance
transportation. For the future, Daimler is therefore also
considering testing hybrid operation in trucks for
longdistance haulage and touring coaches. q B
Emission-free driving with electric vehicles
powered by the battery and the fuel cell.Hydrogenpowered
fuel cell vehicles combine a long range with the
aim of achieving emission-free mobility that conserves
resources — especially if the hydrogen is produced from
renewable sources. Inside a fuel cell, the chemical reaction
between hydrogen and oxygen generates electrical
energy, producing only water vapor as a byproduct in
the process. At the same time, the vehicle-internal efficiency
of fuel cell drives is around twice as high as that
of today’s combustion engines. The Mercedes-Benz
B-Class F-CELL — the first fuel cell passenger car built
under series production conditions — is rolling of the
assembly line since the end of 2009. The vehicle with
locally emission-free drive exhibits a NEDC (New European
Driving Cycle) fuel consumption value equivalent
to 3.3 liters of diesel per 100 kilometers (71 miles
per gallon) and has a range of about 400 kilometers
(249 miles). Its energy storage system is a high-performance
lithium-ion battery with high-voltage technology.
The first of the roughly 200 vehicles have already been
delivered to customers in Europe and the U.S. The new
Mercedes-Benz Citaro FuelCELL Hybrid city bus was
introduced in June 2009. Production of a small batch of
about 30 vehicles began in the fall of 2009, and the
buses are to be gradually put into service in several
cities throughout Europe beginning in 2010.
Series production of the first smart fortwo electric drive
with a lithium-ion battery was launched in the fall of
2009. The vehicles will initially be delivered to selected
customers for use within the framework of mobility
projects in a number of major cities in Europe, the U.S.,
and Canada. In Berlin, the first smart electric drives
were delivered to customers in December 2009.
Starting in 2012 the vehicles will be produced in large
29
D A
More about the reduction of pollutant
emissions:
p. 43
q
B
Our modular concept for hybridization
across all model series:
Online 305
q
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