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News & Media > Sustainability

02:02:2010

Hybrid vans reduce carbon

New hybrid vehicle technology that May Gurney is trialling is expected to deliver an annual saving of three tonnes of CO2 per vehicle.

If the four-month pilot programme on May Gurney’s South West Water repair and maintenance contract is successful, there is potential for a large-scale rollout of retrofit hybrid vans across the company’s commercial vehicle fleet.

Dr Tom Macagno, May Gurney’s head of sustainability, says: “The equipment is retro-fitted using existing mounting points, and delivers lower emissions by utilising the energy from regenerative braking.

“This means it converts the vehicle’s kinetic energy into a storable form of energy instead of dissipating it as heat as with a conventional brake. The system will save an anticipated 14.9% of emissions, based on the European Drive Cycle.

“The new system is particularly ingenious as it does not even involve any re-building or replacement of our existing fleet of vehicles.

“We have a target of a 50% reduction in carbon footprint across the company by 2012, and this initiative is likely to make that target eminently achievable.”

The system is currently undergoing performance monitoring by Lex Autolease’s strategic fleet consultancy team, who have been working with May Gurney on the company’s overall CO2 reduction strategy.

Chris Chandler, associate director at Lex Autolease, said: “This is just one of the environmental initiatives we are investigating with May Gurney.

“It promises immediate returns because it does not tie May Gurney into waiting for current vehicles to finish their lease contracts. We anticipate that this technology could be fully operational and making substantial savings by the beginning of the second quarter of 2010.”

Click here to read more about May Gurney's approach to carbon reduction.