Hybrid: the best of both worlds

Hybrid drives form an important part of the Daimler strategy for sustainable mobility. They combine combustion engines with customized hybrid modules. Hybrid drives integrate combustion engines and electric motors, which can be operated separately or together depending on the vehicle type and driving situation. Thanks to such systems, fuel savings of up to 20 percent can be achieved, particularly in urban traffic. A key component of electrification is energy storage. This is an area in which we have succeeded in making a breakthrough with the lithium-ion battery.

One such system for passenger cars has been on the market since October 2007 in the smart fortwo micro hybrid drive, which is equipped with a three-cylinder gasoline engine and a starter-generator that turns the engine off when the vehicle is idling. Additional hybrid solutions are launched on the market since summer 2009 in the S 400 HYBRID and the ML 450 HYBRID. And whether it’s urban rural-service buses from Orion, trucks and walk-in vans from Freightliner, or light trucks and buses from Mitsubishi Fuso – no other manufacturer in the world has put more commercial vehicles with hybrid drive systems on the road than Daimler. To date the company has delivered about 2100 such vehicles.

For trucks, Daimler uses parallel hybrid systems in which the combustion engine and electric motor propel the vehicle either separately or in tandem. Daimler’s urban buses use series hybrids. Here, the combustion engine drives a generator, which in turn supplies power to the electric motor.