Volvo EC300E Hybrid, saving fuel without the fuss
Hybrid is a free term. Most associate it with a diesel-electric drive. Clear story: this Volvo does NOT have that. Yet Volvo thought carefully about its hybrid system. It is technically simple, affordable and has no effect on the crane's operating characteristics. But in our current market, can the Volvo EC300E Hybrid still make the difference?
In the period around 2015, it was hype in our country: tracked excavators converted to hybrid. At the time, this could be done with body kits. An accumulator, a kind of expansion vessel, captured the residual energy released as soon as you lowered the boom. In other words, you temporarily stored the return pressure of the oil from the lifting cylinders in the accumulator and used it again as soon as you started lifting.
The end of accumulator hybrids soon came
Back then, that pressure was released directly back into the lifting cylinders, and that was not always without a struggle. The system was built mainly to get the machine within the tax-favourable Mia-Vamil.
That all brands could suddenly offer a hybrid machine in this way was a thorn in the side of manufacturers such as Kobelco, Hitachi and Komatsu. They had spent years developing advanced diesel-electric hybrids based on much more expensive technology, with potentially much greater fuel savings too. Soon the guidelines were tightened and only these diesel-electric hybrids still fell within the Mia Vamil scheme. And still. It was the end for accumulator hybrids in our country.
Saving fuel without too much extra technology
And so we are at the Volvo EC300E Hybrid in this test. In which, then, you shouldn't take hybrid too literally. Volvo was looking for a way to save fuel without too much extra (electrical) technology. Volvo therefore dusted off the idea of capturing and reusing the effectively free kinetic energy from the lift cylinders and calls it 'Hybrid'. The eye-catching stickers and deliberately placed hybrid cylinder in plain sight are actually remarkable for the usually modest manufacturer.
Volvo could also have passed this train by, and focused on the next step in development. Now, actually a few years too late, the manufacturer is stepping on the hybrid train after all. And calling the machine that, no doubt, will bring the definition battle in sales talks.
Read the entire article on constructionmachines.co.uk
