Electric Trucks: Zap in the Pan?
You won’t hear it coming, but there is likely to be an electric truck in your future, and it will arrive sooner than you think. It won’t be an-all electric Class 8 over-the-road truck, at least for the foreseeable future. More likely it will be a yard tractor, a service vehicle, or a local or regional route vehicle such as a panel van or a refuse or utility truck.
These vehicles all have the type of power demands and operating attributes that make them ideal candidates for electrification, such as limited daily ranges, easy access to recharging or a duty cycle that allows for overnight charging — and for the most part, they are not highly weight-sensitive.
Weight is certainly a limiting factor with Class 8 trucks, but there are already fully electric ones working in this country. Several are proving viable, if just barely, at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Even with 4,000 to 5,000 pounds of batteries on board, they can make round trips of only 80 miles or so before they must be recharged.
One company that is making batteries work in the Class 8 space is Motiv Power Systems of Foster City, California. Motiv currently has one refuse truck on trial in Chicago, where it reportedly manages routes of about 60 miles with an 18,000-pound payload while running a hydraulic compactor. The company recently announced plans to put an all-electric automated left-side loader garbage truck into testing in Sacramento, California, for residential refuse and recycling routes.
Motiv’s electric refuse vehicle is equipped with 200 kilowatt-hours of energy in 10 battery packs. The chassis can accommodate up to 12 battery packs to handle longer routes if required.
The company has also had success on a smaller scale, a Class 6 walk-in van built by Morgan-Olsen Work Truck Bodies. Motiv …Read the rest of this story
