Port of Los Angeles to Work with Vision Industries

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Jason Hendler

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642 views Jan 15, 2010

When it rains, it pours for Vision Industries Corporation.  

Fresh on the heels of a partnership with Capacity of Texas, Inc. to build a Zero Emissions Terminal Tractor (ZETT(TM)) built on Capacity's PHETT® platform and powered by the Vision plug-in electric/hydrogen fuel cell technology, they now announce a negotiation with the Port of Los Angeles for the port's purchase and evaluation of Vision's hydrogen fuel cell hybrid-electric trucks.

The Vision trucks are powered by a combination of a hydrogen fuel cell and lithium batteries and have a potential range of up to 400 miles, which was critical for customers of Capacity of Texas, and other operations that require non-stop usage of zero emissions vehicles without the need to refuel.

"We are very pleased to work with the Port of Los Angeles to demonstrate the viability of our zero emission, hybrid electric/hydrogen fuel cell truck," said Martin Schuermann, President and Chief Executive Officer of Vision Industries. "These vehicles are 30 percent to 40 percent less expensive to operate than diesel trucks. We expect a strong market demand once these trucks are in the hands of California medium and heavy duty equipment operators."

The Port's Clean Truck Program, which began in October 2008, has removed thousands of polluting trucks from the Port and delivered at least an 80 percent reduction in air emissions while maintaining an efficient drayage fleet.  In addition, California's AB32 greenhouse gas reduction legislation and the City's GreenLA initiative also drive their efforts.

The Port will be following a combination of real-world usage and scientific study of the vehicles, in which data collected from common operations will be evaluated by the University of California at Riverside's College of Engineering Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) laboratories, who will help guide the data collection and analysis.

The Port also operates a fully electric vehicle from Balquon Corporation under an evaluation contract that is also under anaylsis by CE-CERT, so we may finally have good head to head analysis between fully electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

[Source: Press Release]