Fred Crawley asks why have hybrid diesels not gained
more traction among fleets.
Go deeper with GlobalData
As the debut of Honda’s new Hybrid
Insight succeeds only in stirring up another round of media
interest in Toyota’s Prius, it seems a fitting moment to ask just
how much attention fleet lessors should be paying to part-electric
cars.
As discussed in last month’s Motor
Finance, fully electric vehicles seem to be hitting the
finance world first in the fleet sector, in the form of vans in the
sub-3.5 tonne range.
For urban fleet users with high-frequency,
short-distance haulage requirements, their tax advantages and low
running costs make them a respectable choice over and against
diesel LCVs.
However, electric cars seem to have produced a more
lukewarm reaction, due to a number of all-too-human
complications.
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By GlobalDataImage-conscious
Whereas an LCV is simply seen as a
business tool, to be compared against other vehicles in terms of
efficiency alone, a fleet car must also live up to any number of an
end user’s personal requirements.
Electric cars have, until very recently, been
unanimously odd-looking and undersized, with very little to
recommend them as prestige vehicles.
Add to this a limitation on mileage and top speed
(the latter largely irrelevant in the normal operation of a
commercial vehicle), plus a total lack of contingency plans in the
event of a battery failure, and you have a poor candidate for the
sales director’s next hot rod.
However, by providing a veneer of environmental
responsibility on top of what is essentially a well-engineered
internal combustion vehicle, hybrids have managed to dodge the
prestige issue altogether.
In fact, as demonstrated by the popularity of the
Prius in Hollywood, they have been a colossal PR success, allowing
users to buy a petrol vehicle enhanced with an endearingly green
veneer.
But hybrids serve a purpose for fleet providers
beyond the green angle, too. They are cheaper to run than fully
fossil-fuelled vehicles and incur generally lower maintenance costs
– which make hybrids, as with full electric vehicles, a much more
attractive prospect over a longer contract.
Stopgap solution?
According to Mike Waters, market insight
director at Arval, hybrids provide an excellent way to satisfy
customer demand for electric vehicle efficiency while the market
waits for a greater range of full electrics and a better charging
infrastructure.
Until the electric vehicle economy gets to this
point, he thinks, hybrids will remain a common compromise for
fleets.
But does this mean that hybrids are merely a
stopgap product, only likely to remain popular until fully electric
cars become credible to business drivers?
Not necessarily. There is particularly interesting
ground still to be broken in hybrid development, which may
precipitate a much higher level of fleet interest over the next few
years. The technology needed to break this ground is surprisingly
near at hand – in fact, it has been in use in buses and trains for
many years.
Diesel-electric hybrid systems promise greater
efficiencies, lower emissions and more attractive running costs
than anything extant in the petrol-electric field – in terms of
genuine environmental credentials they are unmatched among internal
combustion vehicles.
In fact, according to a 2003 study by MIT’s
Laboratory for Energy and the Environment, they are likely to
outperform all other vehicle types in efficiency terms until at
least 2020.
Low fleet visibility?
But somehow the few examples shown to the
industry so far have been rather lost among the recent deluge of
highly-publicised alternative fuel debuts.
One would be forgiven for missing, for example, the
appearance at last year’s Geneva Motor Show of a Mercedes-Benz GLK
compact SUV with a diesel-electric engine.
Likewise, it takes some sifting through the past
three years of automotive trade press to notice efficiency champion
PSA’s promise to have diesel-electric Peugeot 307s and Citroën C4s
in showrooms by 2010.
Interestingly, Ford and General Motors both built
diesel-electric hybrids in the opening years of this decade, but
soon lost interest in the idea since the cars were unable to meet
air pollution standards while running on American diesel, which at
the time had a very high sulphur content.
This, and the general American disinterest in
diesel power, went a long way towards ensuring the prominence of
petrol-electric hybrids, which now seem to have entirely taken over
the public conception of what a hybrid vehicle is.
PSA, with its plans for 2010, seems to be most
enthusiastic proponent of diesel hybrids in Europe, and reactions
to its modified C4s and 307s – already known as very green and
efficient vehicles – may stir others to follow suit. The numbers,
after all, are impressive; average diesel consumption for the two
cars is 3.4 litres per 100 kilometres.
But cost will be an obstacle: European diesel cars
already cost €1,500 to €2,400 (£1,300 to £2,000) more to build than
petrol equivalents, and it is understood that production of a
diesel hybrid could double that difference.
Finding a financial product offering to mitigate
these premiums is the challenge that awaits lessors when diesel
hybrids finally make an appearance on the market. The reward will
be a fleet solution promising unrivalled efficiency.
