Coke Tests a Hybrid Truck in Europe

By James Kanter

Coca-Cola Enterprises, Europe The beverage giant is testing a hybrid truck.

Beverage giant Coca-Cola has been delivering some of its products with hybrid electric trucks in North America for some time. Now the company says it will roll out the first hybrid vehicle of its kind to be used in a European city.

Coke says the hold-up in Europe was a special formula – not for the famously secret recipe for its cola but for manufacturing hybrid engines for delivery vehicles in urban areas, where frequent stops and starts are common.

“In Europe, we have lagged behind the U.S. in hybrid technology development with the majority of hybrid manufacturers being U.S.-based and having intellectual property exclusivity on their technology,” said Hubert Patricot, the president of Coca-Cola Enterprises Europe, who made the announcement at a business summit in Brussels on Thursday.

The pilot program, to run in Brussels until July, is part of Coke’s efforts at “developing a sustainable transport strategy across our European business,” Mr. Patricot said.

In the United States, Coke has worked with Eaton Corporation to develop hybrid components and with suppliers including as Kenworth and Cummings to configure the engines.

Coke’s partner in Europe is Iveco, a truck maker belonging to the Italian Fiat Group. Iveco already makes some hybrid vehicles, including city buses, and a medium-distance truck called the Eurocargo. Iveco developed the new system to be used in Brussels itself.

The new Coca-Cola truck, which weighs 12 tons, will serve a 20-kilometer route in the center of Brussels running both diesel and electric engines. A battery feeds the electric motor to start and accelerate up to 20 kilometers an hour. Then the diesel motor takes over when the vehicle normally consumes the least fuel, at speeds over 20 kilometers an hour.

Coke wants to see if the truck really can reduce fuel consumption by up to 30 percent and carbon dioxide emissions by 24 percent, as initial estimates suggest.