Crawling, stop-and-go traffic is an annoyance to most drivers. To Eaton Corp., a $15-billion a year FORTUNE 500 company based in Cleveland, it’s a business opportunity.
That’s because, as anyone who has driven a Toyota Prius knows, the stopping and starting, braking and accelerating required in traffic is ideal for hybrid-electric engines, which capture energy from brakes and turn it into electric power.
President Obama checks out a hybrid truck
So Eaton, which has been developing electrical and hybrid power systems for trucks and buses for more than 20 years, is now building a nice business around selling hybrid power systems for commercial vehicles. On a California trip last spring, President Obama got a sneak peak at a plug-in hybrid electric utility truck with a power system developed by Eaton.
According to Alexander M. “Sandy” Cutler, Eaton’s chairman and CEO, the hybrid truck industry—while much smaller, and not nearly as visible as the hybrid car business—is finally taking off. [click to continue…]
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