{"id":1911929,"date":"2023-04-08T15:58:18","date_gmt":"2023-04-08T19:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/army-to-develop-electric-scout-vehicle-to-save-on-fuel-costs\/"},"modified":"2023-04-08T16:01:17","modified_gmt":"2023-04-08T20:01:17","slug":"army-to-develop-electric-scout-vehicle-to-save-on-fuel-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/army-to-develop-electric-scout-vehicle-to-save-on-fuel-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"Army to Develop Electric Scout Vehicle to Save on Fuel Costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Farmy-to-develop-electric-scout-vehicle-to-save-on-fuel-costs%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1911929&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n<p><strong>COLUMBUS, Ohio<\/strong> \u2014 In the Army Climate Strategy published in 2022, the service set a major long-term goal: field fully electric tactical vehicles by 2050.<\/p>\n<p> Through an incremental strategy involving near-, mid- and long-term objectives, the Army is taking steps to reduce fuel demand, increase the capability and eventually electrify its tactical vehicle fleet.<\/p>\n<p> That includes the development of an Electric Light Reconnaissance Vehicle that will get underway this fiscal year after receiving funding from the Operational Energy &#8211; Innovation Directorate, which is the Defense Department\u2019s joint operational energy investment fund.<\/p>\n<p> That money will \u201cjumpstart the ELRV program this year,\u201d John Hufstedler, lead for Ground Mobility Vehicles, said at the National Defense Industrial Association\u2019s Tactical Wheeled Vehicles Conference.<\/p>\n<p> The Army plans to also include funding for the Electric Light Reconnaissance Vehicle in its fiscal year 2024 budget, with the first prototype expected in fiscal year 2025, said deputy assistant secretary of the Army for sustainment Timothy Goddette.<\/p>\n<p> The recon vehicle will be the Army\u2019s \u201cstep into\u201d full electrification, said Brig. Gen. Samuel \u201cLuke\u201d Peterson, the program executive officer for combat support and combat service support.<\/p>\n<p> The service is \u201cgoing to learn a lot through that prototyping effort\u201d for the vehicle, he added.<\/p>\n<p> Peterson said: \u201cThe solution is not defined. It is wide open. There\u2019s a lot of trade space in there. But as a former Cavalry scout sitting on the edge somewhere, I got to know the power is there when I need it.\u201d While reducing emissions and fuel consumption is important, the \u201cwarfighter in me is more concerned about the operational capability\u201d electric vehicles will provide, he added.<\/p>\n<p> Electrification will give the Army\u2019s tactical vehicles more capability, including silent watch and mobility and reduced thermal and acoustic signatures, said the product lead for integration in the program executive office for combat support and combat service support Steve Roberts.<\/p>\n<p> And by taking an incremental approach, the Army is hoping that each phase in the process informs the next on the way to full electrification, Roberts said.<\/p>\n<p> Tactical vehicle electrification is a \u201cthree-phase operation,\u201d Peterson said. The first phase is continuing the development of \u201ccapabilities I\u2019ve got on my truck today\u201d such as anti-idle kits, he added.<\/p>\n<p> Soldiers often leave vehicles idling while conducting operations to ensure batteries and other electric systems remain charged. However, this results in the vehicle burning significant amounts of fuel.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cWhen you rent a car in Europe \u2014 or even here in the United States \u2014 and you come to a stop sign and you hear the engine go off, that&#8217;s saving fuel, right?\u201d When you look at \u2026 most of the military vehicles, you start to find out very quickly that we burn the fuel in the idle phase,\u201d Goddette said.<\/p>\n<p> In March 2022, members of both the Army\u2019s Ground Vehicle Systems Center and the Joint Program Office-Joint Light Tactical Vehicles demonstrated the operational benefits of the center\u2019s anti-idle system, the Tactical Vehicle Electrification Kit, on a JLTV.<\/p>\n<p> The kit automatically cuts engine power to a vehicle during periods of extended idling, reducing fuel consumption and extending silent watch, \u201ca clear advantage for warfighters who don&#8217;t want to give away their positions by turning on the vehicle engine unnecessarily,\u201d an Army release said.<\/p>\n<p> Powered by the kit\u2019s battery, vehicle communications, electronics and HVAC systems remain operational during anti-idle, Josh Tylenda, Ground Vehicle Systems Center project manager for anti-idle systems, said in the release.<\/p>\n<p> The kit also provides \u201cfuel-fired heating to maintain cabin temperatures in cold operating environments, an anti-idle controller with interlocks to implement engine on and off in anti-idle mode along with battery charging management and a human machine interface screen to report system status,\u201d the release said.<\/p>\n<p> The Army plans to put out a request for information to industry for production of the Tactical Vehicle Electrification Kit this spring, with a draft request for proposal to follow in 2024, JLTV product manager Munira Tourner said.<\/p>\n<p> The Army is also prototyping anti-idle kits on its family of Medium Tactical Vehicles, said Lt. Col. Ben Boring, the product manager for Multi-Mission Protected Vehicle Systems.<\/p>\n<p> In August 2021, the Army and the Defense Innovation Unit awarded contracts to XL Fleet and Volta Power Systems to integrate idle-reduction solutions on medium tactical vehicles. The companies are \u201cin the process right now of providing these kits, which we are retrofitting onto\u201d a vehicle, Boring said.<\/p>\n<p> The Army is \u201cshooting for\u201d fuel savings of around 20 percent with these kits, he said.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cOnce we prove out the technology in more of a developmental environment, we want to buy some kits, take it out, get it in the hands of the soldiers and run some events \u2026 to see how it performs in more of an operational environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p> Roberts said: \u201cEverything we learn [from the Tactical Vehicle Electrification Kit] informs hybrid electric, informs \u2026 electrification,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cAnd then the risk decreases as we move along that continuum as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> While an anti-idle kit isn\u2019t necessarily a \u201chome run, you&#8217;re playing small ball,\u201d Goddette said. \u201cYou&#8217;re starting to figure out where can you make the changes, and make the changes quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> \u201cPlaying small ball\u201d has also led the Army to focus on the hybridization of its tactical fleet, Goddette said.<\/p>\n<p> The Army is pursuing a hybrid electric JLTV. The Joint Program Office-Joint Light Tactical Vehicles has partnered with the Army\u2019s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office \u2014 which led the effort on a hybrid electric Bradley Fighting Vehicle \u2014 to help \u201cbuild some of the underpinning requirements\u201d for the hybrid electric JLTV program, Tourner said.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cWe\u2019re still trying to understand what the requirements space is,\u201d and they are determining what the best strategy will be to move forward when the program begins in fiscal year 2024, she said.<\/p>\n<p> The Army plans to deliver hybrid electric demonstrators of the JLTV and the Humvee this fiscal year, according to Peterson and Goddette.<\/p>\n<p> Rather than jumping straight into full electrification, the Army is currently focusing on hybridization with its tactical vehicles as it follows the investment of commercial industry into electric vehicle technology. The service is waiting \u201cfor the price margin to come down\u201d and \u201cfor the technology to be proven out,\u201d Goddette said.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cWe should be fast followers,\u201d he said. \u201cWe should be looking at the technologies and looking at the opportunity where we can bring it in \u2014 not just because the technology is ready \u2014 but because it&#8217;s affordable, because it&#8217;s reliable, and because we&#8217;re taking advantage of the great industrial base that we have \u2026 that is very closely aligned with what we do with tactical wheeled vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> The Army must ensure the technology it is acquiring today is suitable for military operations and the environment the vehicles will be operating in, he added. As the fleet is hybridized \u2014 and eventually electrified \u2014 the service must consider how to maintain and charge its vehicles in the field.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cIf your batteries are so heavy that you have a five-ton truck that has four-and-a-half tons of batteries on it, it doesn&#8217;t leave a lot of room for cargo \u2026 and how am I going to recharge an electric vehicle in the places that we&#8217;re going to be?\u201d Goddette said.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cI grew up in Vermont, so I know you can tap into a tree and get maple syrup, right? But we haven&#8217;t figured out, I think, how to tap into a tree and get electricity yet,\u201d he said.<br \/> While it can\u2019t tap into trees, the Army is exploring the possibility of utilizing existing power generation capabilities to charge forward-deployed electric vehicles in the future, said Lt. Col. Thomas Beyerl, product manager for mobile electric power systems.<\/p>\n<p> The goal is to keep energy \u201cliquid as long as we can as far forward as we can,\u201d Beyerl said. \u201cPurpose-built\u201d power generators are the \u201cmost efficient way to [turn] that liquid stored energy into electrical energy,\u201d he said, and the closer the Army can bring those power generation capabilities, \u201cthe less logistics trains we need to have in order to bring that energy forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> Integrating power generation systems with the future electrified fleet will ensure soldiers \u201chave the energy where they need it, when they need it, when they want it,\u201d and give them and their commanders \u201cthe power of flexibility\u201d to use that energy in a variety of ways, such as charging the vehicle to extend its range or supplying power to onboard or offboard systems, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled Steve Roberts&#8217; name as Steve Rogers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 In the Army Climate Strategy published in 2022, the service set a major long-term goal: field fully electric tactical vehicles by 2050. Through an incremental strategy involving near-, mid- and long-term objectives, the Army is taking steps to reduce fuel demand, increase the capability and eventually electrify its tactical vehicle fleet. That<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1911931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[4367,7969,9868,5340,6783,10011,18916,5343],"class_list":["post-1911929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-army","tag-costs","tag-develop","tag-electric","tag-fuel","tag-save","tag-scout","tag-vehicle"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1911929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1911931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1911929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1911929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1911929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}