September 2004

E-Mail This Article Printer-Friendly Version UPS driver Dan McMackin explains the inner workings of his company’s new medium-duty fuel cell-powered delivery vehicle to elementary school children from LA’s Best, an after-school education and recreation program for inner-city students in the Los Angeles area. The vehicle, a Dodge Sprinter van, is one of three new fuel-cell powered vans that will be deployed on UPS delivery routes in the U.S.

SANTA MONICA, CA - More powerful and with longer range than the first generation, three new large fuel cell-powered package delivery vehicles are being added to the fleet of delivery service UPS.

Flanked by executives from DaimlerChrysler, maker of the 3-ton medium-duty Dodge Sprinter; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); the Energy Department and the State of California, UPS senior vice president of global transportation services Chris Mahoney last month presented the first of the trio at a press conference here where it will be deployed in early November (the one shown in Santa Monica has to go back first for some final adjustments). Two others will start making deliveries in Sacramento, CA and Ann Arbor, MI about the same time.

The addition brings the total number of UPS fuel cell vehicles to four. First announced a year ago (H&FCL June 03). a DaimlerChrysler F-Cell car has been making early morning UPS deliveries in southeastern Michigan since March of this year in a collaborative program with EPA which fuels the car at its National Emissions Testing Laboratory in Ann Arbor. In a concurrent program, UPS collaborated with the carmaker in a Sprinter testing program in Germany, and the data gathered in the project led to the improvements in the new vehicles.

“Exciting How Fast the Technology is Progressing”

“Our two test programs showed the on-road reliability of fuel cell vehicles is excellent, equivalent to our current fleet,” said Mahoney. “But what’s truly exciting is how fast the technology is progressing.”

“We’re very happy with the F-Cell,” Robert Hall, fleet and environmental manager for UPS, told H&FCL. The car “has performed very well.”

The new Sprinters have a range of up to 155 miles, compared to about 90 miles for the previous version. Peak power of the fuel cell engine, built by Ballard Power Systems, is up about 45% over the original 55 kW and powertrain efficiency has been increased by about 20%, according to the UPS release. Acceleration of the new versions is described as similar to that of gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicles.

Like the F-Cell cars, the Sprinters use gaseous hydrogen, stored at 5,000 psi, as fuel. The Ann Arbor van will also be fueled at the EPA station, and the one in Sacramento at the California Fuel Cell Partnership facility.

No decision has been made so far where the Los Angeles-based van will be based. Hall says it could be at any of several UPS distribution centers, and fueling might be done while the truck is on its rounds. The word is that the carmaker plans to build more of them in the future, but no details so far. A DaimlerChrysler spokeswoman in Germany confirmed to H&FLC that it is thinking about building more, but “nothing has been decided as yet as to numbers and timetables.” The standard-engined Sprinter is marketed in the United States by both DaimlerChrysler’s Dodge division and by the Freightliner subsidiary.

The very first fuel cell Sprinter was first tested under real-world conditions by a German parcel delivery service, Otto Versand, three years ago in Hamburg (H&FCL Feb. 01). Contact: Lindsay Vidrine, 314/982-1723, e-mail vidrinel@fleishman.com.