Along with hybrid and natural gas-powered trucks, activity surrounding all-electric commercial vehicles is gaining momentum on several fronts.
CALSTART’s E-Truck Task Force (E-TTF), a sub-group of the Hybrid, Electric and Advanced Truck Users Forum (HTUF), is moving ahead with efforts to promote incentives for electric trucks and has published a white paper on how to structure voucher programs. Additionally, at the NAFA Institute and Expo this year, CALSTART held training sessions on life cycle cost assessment of electric trucks and is holding regional fleet workshops on the subject.
At this year’s Government Fleet Expo and Conference in June, Boulder Electric Vehicle unveiled an electric Stake Side work truck for its flatbed platform. The Boulder EV FB-500 flatbed joins the company’s CARB-certified DV-500 electric delivery van and SB-500 service body models. The DV-500 has a payload capacity of 4,000 lbs. and a 534-cu.-ft. cargo area. Boulder EV trucks, which can be recharged in about eight hours, are capable of speeds up to 70 MPH and have a 100-mi. range on electric power.
Boulder all-electric vehicles have only a few main components, including the motor that propels the vehicle, a motor controller that transforms direct current from the battery to a suitable current for the motor, a charger that transforms alternating current to direct current to charge the Lithium-Iron-Phosphate batteries and a battery management system for avoiding over-charging or under-discharging.
Other suppliers developing electric vehicle technology include TransPower, which offers the ElecTruck electric drive system for short duty-cycle trucks and was awarded a grant by California’s San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District to develop an all-electric heavy-duty tractor. The company says electric tractors, which are capable of hauling loads up to 80,000 lbs., have shown the ability to operate for as long as 12 hours on a single battery charge.
Electric trucks already are being placed in service in Chicago. Under a five-year contract with Motiv Power Systems, the city will deploy 20 Class 8, all-electric garbage trucks with a GVWR of 52,000 lbs. and a range of 60 mi. Chicago chose to request bids for electric refuse trucks after evaluating hybrid and compressed natural gas (CNG) options and found that garbage collection routes did not enable those technologies to be financially viable.
Chicago also has been validating the Motiv electric Powertrain Control System (ePCS) since March 2012 in an all-electric 20-passenger bus, which can cover more than 120 miles on a single charge.
Motiv’s ePCS uses off-the-shelf batteries and motors, which can be mixed and matched to fit the exact size of medium- to heavy-duty electric vehicles from 15,000 to 52,000 lbs.
There also is a need for an infrastructure to support all-electric trucks in fleet operations. At the Alternative Clean Transportation Expo in June, Boulder EV and Coritech Services demonstrated a bi-directional DC fast charging system. The Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) charging solution utilizes a Boulder flatbed model with a Lithium 72 kWh battery pack and a Coritech 60kW DC Fast Charger System.
In a white paper, CALSTART also explained the benefits of electric vehicle charging in the workplace. The information is part of its E-Truck Task Force effort to address costs, vehicle quality and support, and performance validation and business case information, including data on charging infrastructure requirements and costs, for all-electric trucks.
Meanwhile, testing and validation of all-electric trucks in a variety of fleet applications continues. Combined, industry and supplier efforts in the electric truck market will further speed and support effective electric truck production and use.
