The Electrics Are Coming

For a sector dealing with desperately sluggish sales and hard times across the board, the world of medium-duty truck manufacturing is surprisingly abuzz with activity. Deals are being made and engineers are hard at work, because it’s such a big market and because everyone knows that buyers will increasingly demand greener and greener vehicles.

Over the next decade or so, more and more cities will restrict urban-core access to clean trucks, for example, and their own fleets — by citizen demand — will be increasingly "responsible" in environmental terms.

But it’s going to cost.

It’s no wonder then that the push toward hybrid powertrains of varying sorts, or toward zero-emissions electric trucks in the slightly longer term, is being led by the well-heeled likes of Coca-Cola, Purolator and FedEx and big towns like Toronto.

It’s also no wonder that Navistar has made a joint-venture deal with Modec, the British electric truck maker, spurred by President Obama’s recent announcement of a very big grant to stimulate electric vehicle manufacturing in the U.S. Navistar is getting over $40 million of that fund, which will be used mostly to get the Modec JV off the ground. We’re not talking about a class 6/7 furniture mover here, rather the aim is to make zero-emissions class 2 and 3 electric trucks — "big vans" as Navistar vice president Jim Hebe calls them — in North America for sale in Central and South America as well.

Another British outfit, Smith Electric Vehicles, doesn’t yet manufacture trucks on this side of the pond, but it already has some of its class-6 mid-range vehicles in the hands of Coca-Cola, Staples, Frito-Lay, AT&T, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and Kansas City Power & Light. They’re for test and evaluation purposes, delivered as of this past June. The recession will have delayed things, no doubt, but Smith too will make its electric trucks in North America before long, in Kansas City by all accounts, not California as was once planned.

In fact Smith also has a development collaboration with Ford to produce a North American version of the European light-duty Ford Transit Connect commercial van with full electric power. A gasoline-powered model of the little Ford is for sale here now, and the electric Transit Connect will be available in 2010, fully branded as a Ford product and available through selected North American Ford dealerships.

Just as the four-wheel world is getting more and more excited about electricity as a power source — and that includes one very quick sports car, the Tesla — the quiet hum of electric motors will very likely be heard at more and more urban loading docks across the continent.

That plug-in Tesla, by the way, just to give you an idea of what’s possible, does zero to 100 km/h in under four seconds and it’s twice as efficient as a Toyota Prius. 

BIG VANS; TINY EMISSIONS: Navistar launched a
joint venture to build the zero-emissions Modec plug-in electric class 2/3 van

We already have at least one electric commercial vehicle working in Canada, of course, namely the unique Purolator courier van purpose-built by Unicell with all-electric power train by ArvinMeritor. Its initial trial is done, we believe, but the results and conclusions have not been made public. As far as we’re aware, a second-generation vehicle along the same lines is in the offing.

MODEC VANS

The Modec range of urban delivery vehicles is currently based on one chassis with a GVW of 5,490 kg or 12,100 lb, available as a box van, chassis cab, or drop-side. Curb weight is 3,000 kg/6,614 lb, leaving a decent payload of over two tonnes. The single cab is odd looking, very tall, but also very spacious with full stand-up height and superb outward vision. It’s made with energy absorbing plastic lower body panels that return to their previous shape after an impact. They simply bounce back. The vehicle is claimed to be 98-percent recyclable.

The electric motor, and that’s all there is by way of power, produces 102 horses and 221 lb ft of torque. And the beauty of electric torque is that it’s all there the second you press the accelerator — one rpm, maximum torque, zero emissions. There’s a clutchless transmission, of course, with four lever positions: Park, Reverse, Neutral, and Drive.

Top speed, electronically limited, is 80 km/h, and an eight-hour charge of the lithium-ion battery gets you a range of about 160 km.

But you can get rolling much faster if you simply exchange the spent battery for a charged one. That takes just 20 minutes, and it allows for 24/7 productivity.

Regenerative braking extends the battery’s inherent range by capturing power developed when braking or decelerating. You get both anti-lock braking and electronic braking distribution, by the way, with discs up front and drums out back.

It’s not known how the Navistar partnership will work this in North America, but in the U.K. buyers own the truck while leasing the battery from Modec. That means no worries about battery maintenance or disposal. It should also insulate the buyer from the financial downside of battery obsolescence.

Modec was founded in 2004 and has built more than 150 vehicles since production began in 2007. The British supermarket chain Tesco was the first customer. Others include UPS, FedEx, Marks & Spencer, and several others in both the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe.

You’ll be interested to know that the team responsible for bringing this little truck from concept to market is the same one responsible for launching the iconic TX1 London taxi.

A BIGGER ELECTRIC

Half a dozen Smith Newton electric trucks were recently delivered to several Fortune 500 companies in the U.S., and the company says it’s ready to build and deliver more. It suggests there’s an "addressable market of 200,000 units" for its electric trucks in North America. 

Purolator’s ‘zero-emissions’ electric hybrid

Smith Electric Vehicles and its zero-emissions Newton, introduced in Europe in 2007, is claimed to be the world’s largest electric truck, with a payload up to 15,800 lb. The class 6 version is powered by a rack of suitcase-sized, 278-volt lithium-ion batteries and a 120-kilowatt motor that propel the vehicle — quickly, by all accounts, since there’s no torque curve — up to its top speed of 80 km/h.

It comes in three models with GVW ratings of 7,500, 10,000 or 12,000 kg (16,535, 23,148, or 26,455 lb).

The truck has a range of up to 150 km when fully charged in six to eight hours by a simple plug-in, with regenerative braking helping out.

Launched in early 2007 in Europe, the Smith Newton is in fleets such as TNT, Starbucks and DHL, along with British institutions like the Royal Mail and retailer Marks & Spencer. It’s designed for urban, intra-city operations, including home shopping delivery, 3PL logistics, mail and parcel distribution, and municipal duties.

"The larger-sized commercial vehicle — and the truck in particular — is perfectly suited to electric technology that’s available today," says Smith sales director Kevin Harkin.

"There are millions of commercial vehicles in North America that work in urban areas, within defined low-mileage zones or routes. All of these machines, from light postal vehicles to heavier-duty distribution trucks, can be replaced with our new technology electric vehicles.

"And these congested, densely populated urban areas are exactly where vehicles with zero tailpipe emissions can make the biggest improvement to air quality."

The Newton uses a rolling chassis cab made by Avia in the Czech Republic, though the company would prefer to source rolling chassis cabs from a U.S. manufacturer.

In Euro trim the Newton’s body panels are built from an ultra-light, state-of-the-art and fully recyclable composite material, which substantially reduces body weight. The cab is all steel with hydraulic tilt.

The Newton is interesting but it’s definitely not cheap, costing in US $200,000 for the larger models. Smith says it’s not as bad as it sounds if you look at it on a whole-life cost basis, claiming the truck takes on average about five years to pay for itself.

This is due to the lower operating costs (about US$0.11 per mile, it’s claimed) and extremely low maintenance costs. The Newton’s electric motor, for example, has just four moving parts, compared to over 1000 in a modern diesel driveline, says Harkin.

Smith has sold some 150 Newtons to TNT Express Services for use in both the U.K. and continental Europe in its — get this — 45,000-vehicle European fleet. It reports running costs of about $55 a week in England to recharge the Newton’s batteries as opposed to something like $250 spent on fuel for a comparable diesel vehicle.

As with the Modec, U.K. government incentives mean the Newton is exempt from the London congestion charge (about $4,000 a year) and incurs no road tax.

The presence of these electric trucks in North America isn’t likely to shift buyers away from diesels any time soon, not at $200,000 a pop. But if they’re accepted by the big fleets and the production numbers start to ramp up quickly, that purchase price will drop dramatically.

That will expand the immediate market, but will it damage the chances of moving diesel/electric hybrid technology into the realm of the commercially viable?

What we have here is a market sector facing a major transition. Not tomorrow, but soon.