By Paul Scott Abbott, AJOTThe unit’s color may be white, but the new Kalmar terminal tractor with hydraulic hybrid drive is most definitely “green” – and it is expected to save its users some green as well. Following a successful test initiated a year ago at the Port of Singapore by Cargotec Corp.’s development partner, the new breed of high-performance, reduced-emissions terminal tractors is now being marketed to North American containerports and distribution centers. “We’ve released what we believe is the best solution for the customer and their operation,” Laura Stringer, Cargotec’s director of sales support and supply interface for terminal tractors, told the American Journal of Transportation in a telephone interview. “It has demonstrated efficiency savings that benefit both the operator and the environment.” Stringer, who is based at the Ottawa, Kan., facility where the machines are being manufactured, is in charge of taking the hydraulic hybrid drive terminal tractor to market. “The immediate need and the most urgent requests have been from North America,” she said, “but we’re getting a lot of interest globally as well.” Mikko Vuojolainen, Cargotec’s vice president for terminal tractors, commented, “The pressure to reduce emissions at ports and in urban areas is strongest in the United States. “We have engineered the Kalmar hydraulic hybrid drive terminal tractor to help customers meet ever-stricter regulations in this part of the world and to combat expensive exhaust after-treatment solutions,” Vuojolainen continued. Following the test at PSA Singapore Terminals, a demonstration unit has been deployed at an undisclosed U.S. distribution facility and is slated to be put into service in January at an unidentified East Coast containerport, according to Stringer. While sales initially are to focus on the North American market, the machine has truly global roots, having been developed through a partnership between Finland-based Cargotec and Kinetics Drive Solutions Inc., a Langley, British Columbia-based unit of Singapore Technologies Kinetics Ltd., known as ST Kinetics for short. Cargotec, which is known for its worldwide research and development organization, used engineers from such diverse locations as Kansas and India in work on this project. ST Kinetics’ Hy-POWER hydraulic hybrid drive system combines with the clean diesel engine of the Kalmar Ottawa 4x2 off-highway terminal tractor to offer improved performance, fuel cost savings of about 20 percent in typical operations, and significant reductions of more than 20 percent in nitrous oxide and particulate matter emissions, Stringer said. “The advantage is certainly the parallel hybrid system, which is more cost-competitive than the other hybrid terminal tractors on the market, because the need for expensive recharging stations has been eliminated,” she said, noting that the machine can also function without the hydraulic power source, using the still-in-place original power train, thus alleviating concerns about unit downtime due to recharging. The machine’s components are easily accessible and have been built to outlast the normal life cycle of a terminal tractor, meaning maintenance intervals are twice as long as for a traditional terminal tractor. Also, customers do not have to invest in special refueling or daily plug-in equipment and do not have to deal with costs and environmental factors associated with battery pack replacement and disposal of exhausted batteries. The hydraulic power-generating system facilitates smoother acceleration, thus helping to reduce driver fatigue and driveline wear. And, with the machine’s inching function, no engine power is needed to move the unit slowly along in lines. The unit’s regenerative energy system involves the release during takeoff of hydraulic oil from the hydraulic accumulator into the low-pressure reservoir via a pump motor that then drives the rear axle with the gearbox. During braking, the pump motor pumps the hydraulic oil from the low-pressure rese