UPS deal helping fuel growth for Loveland-based Lightning Hybrids

LOVELAND — Lightning Hybrids officials hope their new deal to retrofit 50 UPS Inc. trucks with hybrid systems is just the “tip of the iceberg” with the world’s largest package-delivery company.

Loveland-based Lightning — which makes hydraulic hybrid systems for medium- and heavy-duty fleet vehicles, as well as larger trash trucks and transit buses — announced the deal with UPS Thursday. Lightning will install its systems on 50 Freightliner MT-55 trucks with gasoline engines in the Chicago area. The first trucks already went into service this week, and all are slated to be on the road by the end of October, improving fuel efficiency and reducing emissions for UPS.

Lightning officials said Thursday that they are hoping the return on investment for UPS will lead the company to adopt the hybrid systems “on a worldwide scale.”

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“We did a successful pilot with them,” Lightning Hybrids vice president of marketing Bonnie Trowbridge said in a phone interview. “They were pleased with it, and we’re looking forward to working more with them in the future.”

Lightning CEO Tim Reeser said in a news release that the deal with UPS, along with other recent large orders, has allowed the company to reduce the price of its systems, which range from $12,000 to $30,000 depending on the type of vehicle and system installed.

The UPS deal came in at more than $1 million for Lightning, which is projecting total revenue of $3.5 million this year and $11 million next year. The company employs 48 people, with all but four in Loveland.

Trowbridge said all of the growth will likely lead to an expansion of Lightning’s space in Loveland at some point in the coming year, but the company has no specific plans in that regard just yet. The company occupies about 25,000 square feet in downtown Loveland between its 319 Cleveland Ave. and 142 Second St. locations.

“We’re nose to the grindstone for the rest of this year, and we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Trowbridge said.

UPS’s purchase order was funded in part by Drive Clean Chicago, a program that aims to accelerate the adoption of alternative fuel vehicles in the city. UPS’s “Rolling Laboratory” program deploys more than 7,200 low-emission vehicles of varying types in its U.S. fleet.