December 26, 2018 Vol. 15 No. 25

With the end of 2018 very near at hand, this is the moment when folks like me wrap up the year and talk about its highlights. I’ll be no different.

You could legitimately call 2018 the year of the BEV, or battery electric vehicle. The buzz was constant, but for the most part it was a lot of very serious enthusiasm and a ton of engineering effort without a whole lot of wheels on the ground commercially. Many trials, many demo units, and much momentum.

I’m being a little unfair in saying there aren’t many wheels on the ground and working because, for example, Orange EV’s commercially-deployed fleet of pure electric terminal trucks are in active use across the U.S., and recently surpassed 211,000 ‘key on’ hours and 675,000 miles. For terminal trucks used mostly in-yard and at lower speeds, these numbers are significant. Customers confirm that these trucks really work, the manufacturer says. Orange EV’s commercially deployed fleet is now in its fourth year in northern climates, seemingly oblivious to the cold and snow.

As well, BYD has quite a few fully electric trucks on trials and many buses working now, and the class 4 Fuso eCanter is already commercially available. J.B. Hunt Transport Services recently added five of the plug-in electric Fusos to its final-mile fleet. Fuso is a real player, well proven, from a strong manufacturer. I would be willing to bet that Hunt adds more of them. These first five eCanters will be used for home deliveries in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., and the greater Houston area.

The eCanter has a range of only 80 miles max but it’s well suited for inner-city delivery applications, according to Hunt. The trucks feature a one-to-two hour fast charge option with a DC charger. Operating costs for the eCanter can be as much as $2000 lower than diesel for each 12,000 miles driven, the carrier says.

“The eCanter demonstrates that the future of electric trucks is very possible and is no longer a prototype but a real truck delivering real goods daily,” said Justin Palmer, president and CEO of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck of America, Inc.”

AND THERE’S A QUIET LITTLE COMPANY in Quebec that you’ve probably never heard of — Lion Electric, born in 2008, which already has some 150 battery-electric class C school buses in daily operation across the continent. The Lion 360 has been built since 2015 and is doing well by all accounts. Earlier this year the company showed off an all-electric 26-ft. minibus, the eLionM. It’s a 160 kWh vehicle, custom-built with a low-floor for the paratransit, transit, and urban segments. It features a range of 150 miles on a single charge. The electric motor offers up the equivalent of 200 hp.

Lion also has a heavy-duty truck coming. This past fall the vertically integrated company introduced its eLion8, a tandem-axle class 8 truck or tractor with custom-built frame and cab. Said to be ready next year, it will come with several wheelbase offerings, air or leaf-spring suspensions, and a variety of power options, all of them plug-in electric. Top speed will be up to 105 km/h.

Using lithium-ion batteries up to 480 kWh, the truck will develop as much as 470 hp and a whopping maximum torque of up to 2580 lb ft.

The company is looking to build a second manufacturing plant in the U.S.

THEN THERE’S THE FREIGHTLINER eM2. Earlier this month Penske Truck Leasing accepted the keys to its first electric eM2. The big boys are in the game.

“Electric commercial vehicles present a real opportunity to advance the ideal of emissions-free mobility while improving our customers’ real cost of ownership,” said Daimler Trucks North America president and CEO Roger Nielsen.