Jim Park: Elon Musk launched his electric Tesla Semi back in November of 2017. That’s when the lights came on for Trevor Platt, the operations manager at Langley, B.C.’s RR Plett Trucking.

Trevor told equipment editor Jim Park he was so excited about the potential of electric trucks, he put down an initial deposit for ten of them. He’s still waiting for those units to be delivered, but that was the moment he felt the future of electric transport was within reach. The future for that company is here now. They’ve since taken delivery of six Volvo VNR Electrics and have integrated them into their drayage fleet.

Trevor Plett: It’s Trevor Plett. I am operations manager at RR Plett Trucking based in Vancouver, Canada. We started with two. We ran those for about six months, and we felt like it went really smoothly. The VNR Electrics have proven to be reliable for us, especially in the operation that we’re running, where we’re home every evening. We’re able to charge overnight, and the range we’re getting on them has worked well. We’re getting about 300 kilometers per truck, so, on an average day, it’s not really an issue of range.

Park: Those six trucks are currently running in the drayage division called West Coast Freight. From their base in Port Kells, British Columbia — near Langley — they serve several Vancouver ports including Deltaport, Vanterm, Centerm, and Fraser Surrey Docks. Trevor says he’s very pleased with how the trucks are performing so far.

Plett: I would say overall, they have reached or even exceeded our expectations. Drivers have really enjoyed using them. They’re less tired at the end of the shift. They have less noise in the cab. There’s no exhaust fumes they have to deal with during their shift. So they’ve really enjoyed that.

There was a bit of a learning curve for the driver to understand how to use that regenerative braking and also opportunity charging. Also, the dispatch has had to adjust some of their routing just to make sure we’re not running into range issues. That’s been an obstacle that we’ve overcome.

We’ve already started talking to BC Hydro about expanding our charging network on-site. As with anybody who’s looking at getting into Class 8 electric, the first hurdle is getting your charging infrastructure set up.

We were lucky to begin with that, we had heavy power to site prior to looking into this Class 8 addition.

So we were able to get charging infrastructure quickly set up for our first six units, but our next twenty trucks that we’re planning on bringing on, we will have to upgrade our BC Hydro service. We are hoping that we’ll have the charging infrastructure ready to be installed end of 2026, and then hopefully be able to bring on another twenty electric Class 8 trucks into our local fleet. It’s still fairly early. We’re a year and a bit into the first two trucks, and we’re only eight months into the next four.

So I think the business case is starting to come together with the data we’re getting back. Issues we may have — at end of life, how much are these used electric trucks worth, what’s the residual value — that’s still an unknown at this point. But the fuel savings are substantial.

The repairs and maintenance savings are also substantial. Just based on those two savings items, I think our breakeven point is around year three or year four depending on how things go, but that’s where it’s tracking right now. And, obviously, that would not be possible without the government support — those federal and provincial grants that helped get this off the ground. So that made it feasible.

We’re starting to prove that this electrification of Class 8 trucks in the local market can work — not someday in the future, but today — it’s starting to work. So we’re happy with how it’s going, and we’re gonna continue down that path.

You can read the full story on RR Plett Trucking’s foray into electric trucks at trucknews.com.