The Lockwood Report

October 4, 2017 Vol. 14 No. 20

Everybody’s talking electric. Or so it seemed at last week’s inaugural North American Vehicle Show (NACV) in Atlanta, Ga. And it wasn’t just the truck makers waxing poetic about electrification; Bosch and Meritor also had lots to say, for example.

Ironically, given that I’d been mighty keen to see how our first NACV show performed, I had to miss it altogether. A medical issue kept me at home, so this newsletter will have to be a mix of reports from colleagues and press releases and a few conversations. Frustrating week. But back to the meat of it…

Still growing rather slowly in commercial terms, the electric idea seems poised to take off, and not just for urban work.

Just a few weeks ago Cummins leaped into the fray. After 98 years of building diesel engines exclusively, the Indiana company showed us the AEOS all-electric plug-in class 7 tractor capable of 75,000-lb gross weights. One of the coolest things there is that after a day’s work, it only needs 20 minutes to re-charge. It will be in customer hands in 2019, says Cummins. I should make it clear that they’re not building trucks, just electric powertrains. Built on an International ProStar base, the demonstration tractor was produced by Roush Engineering.

Daimler subsidiary Fuso recently launched production of its all-electric eCanter, in Europe, and three of them have already reached North American shores, bought by UPS. One of them was on display at the NACV show.

Tesla now says its own electric tractor is scheduled for introduction in California later this month, “tentatively” October 26, but we’ll see what happens. Given the trouble the company is having building its new small car, the Model 3, in any quantity, I’m not sure that date is worth casting in stone. All we really know is that it’s a daycab.

And then, of course, there’s the Nikola One and Two which we’ll see on the road soonish, using an on-board hydrogen fuel cell to power electric motors — and develop insane levels of torque.

MERITOR CEO SEES ELECTRIC FUTURE. As HDT editor Deb Lockridge reported, Meritor chief Jay Craig said, “There is a sea change in our industry with regard to electrification of the drivetrain.” The actual percentage of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles that will be fully electric or hybrid electric by 2025, he said, is not as important as the surety that the number will be more than it is today.