Ashwoods is the UK’s market leader in hybrid technology for commercial fleets.

Ashwoods hybrid solutions are designed to work for customers today – significantly cutting CO2 and fuel costs yet requiring no change in users’ business operations or behaviour. Ashwoods Hybrid systems do not carry the risks associated with other low emission technologies such as limited range and prohibitively expensive battery costs.

Starting as specialist LPG convertors, at Ashwoods we have a long history of developing leading low emissions technologies. We pride ourselves on understanding our market and providing progressive solutions that exceed customer and industry expectations.

Ashwoods Hybrid technology overviewBack to top  

Hybrid Drive is a groundbreaking hybrid technology, developed, patented and brought to market by Ashwoods for light commercial vehicles.

Using an electric motor or generator, the Hybrid Drive assists the drive of the vehicle in heavy load situations – reducing both the harmful emissions of CO2 and fuel consumption, as if the engine were running in a low load state.

How the Hybrid drive worksBack to top  

Similar to Formula 1’s KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems), Hybrid Drive recovers the kinetic energy usually wasted through braking and deceleration – instead using it for battery charge. Formula 1 uses this recovered energy for additional power. Ashwoods uses it to assist the engine – lowering the loading and the resulting fuel consumption.

By communicating with the vehicle through the standard vehicle diagnostic socket, the Hybrid Control Unit activates the electric motor to assist when the engine is under load. This is usually in urban traffic and at speeds of under 60mph, when the engine is at its least efficient.

Once the engine is not under this load, the motor adjusts to act as a generator to charge the battery, using the energy that’s normally wasted during deceleration and braking.

This creates a self-sufficient hybrid vehicle system that requires no plug-in charging.

Read more on Hybrid Drive functionality

Developing the solutionBack to top  

What makes Ashwoods unique is our experience and expertise within the industry.  It was this that enabled us to combine our customer knowledge with our hybrid electric vehicle technology development skills to identify ‘the problem’. From here, we developed exactly the solution the market was looking for:

Key to developing this solution was the successful creation of our patented Vehicle Integration Method (VIM). The concept of this is to integrate hybrid technology simply and quickly, without compromising the vehicle warranty or residual value. And, even if the hybrid technology suffers a fault, the vehicle continues to operate as normal until the fault is resolved. The VIM is a major advantage to operators of large fleets who need the assurance of residual control and reliable vehicles.

Hybrid Drive, together with VIM, has been developed entirely in-house. The design incorporates carefully sourced components from around the word, the suppliers of which we have built strong collaborative relationships with. We see our suppliers as long-term partners who will remain a key part of the development of our future product portfolio.

Read more on development projects

Where no suitable components were available on the market, we used our technology specialists to develop them ourselves. This particularly applies to our Hybrid Control Unit (HCU), which sets the Ashwoods Hybrid Drive apart from any other technology available in the market.

System componentsBack to top  

Key selling pointsBack to top  

• Proven CO2 and fuel cost savings of over 15%

• Significant NOx and Particulate savings

• Integration into vehicle in under three hours

• Can be fitted to vehicles already operational

• Can be fitted to new vehicles

• Does not compromise standard vehicle warranty

• Does not affect residual value of vehicle

• Can be reused on replacement vehicles

• No downtime in case of fault as the vehicle reverts to standard power source.

Currently Ashwoods Hybrid Technology is only available as a whole vehicle solution. Retro-fit systems will become available at the end of 2010 to customers who have purchased Ashwoods Hybrid Transits, allowing them to run a hybrid conversion programme across their existing fleet vehicles.

To find out more about Ashwoods hybrid conversions and how hybrid technologies could cut your transport costs, get in touch.