The Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) partnered with the University of Texas – Center for Electromechanics (UT-CEM), Unique Electric Solutions (UES), Accelera by Cummins, and the United Parcel Service (UPS) to develop, validate, and deploy fuel cell hybrid electric walk-in delivery vans. The fuel cell hybrid delivery vehicle design is able to achieve extended range through an optimum combination of fuel cell and battery power along with hydrogen energy storage. By implementing a state-of-the-art, high-power capacity battery module, the team designed a vehicle that primarily uses hydrogen as energy storage while the fuel cell and battery pack are optimized to deliver the vehicle’s power needs.
During the first phase of the project, the team converted a diesel-powered walk- in van provided by UPS to electric drive with a fuel cell range extender. UT-CEM integrated an Accelera fuel cell, power electronics, hydrogen storage system, and controls into the base electric vehicle. The fuel cell hybrid van design was based on specifications for the UES existing battery electric walk-in van. The finished demonstration vehicle was shipped to UPS in California for real-world demonstration and validation for approximately one year.
In the second phase, the team is deploying an additional 15 vehicles. UPS is operating the additional vehicles at UPS distribution centers throughout the state of California. This demonstration plan maximizes access to the state’s extensive network of high-capacity and high-throughput fueling stations, minimizes potential risk to delivery operations, and enables evaluation of the vehicles in a variety of duty cycles.
