More and more manufacturers have begun to develop and improve electric vehicle (EV) technology, but adoption of this newly emerging market is in its infancy. One company, FedEx, has begun a pilot program to test this new technology. The transportation logistics vehicle corporation is in the process of putting the International eStar electric vehicle through its paces in select areas.
The eStar is a Class 2c-3 electric truck - the first in its category – that has a range of 100 miles per charge. It can be plugged in and fully recharged within six to eight hours.Keshav Sondhi, chief engineer for global vehicles for FedEx, manages the Electrical Vehicles segment for the company. He suggests the process of implementing EVs be done in two steps.
“Identify the best truck, and find the most repeatable and responsible (efficient) way of charging these trucks,” he explains. “Any fleet trying to go mainstream would have to at least address those two concerns.”
WHY ELECTRIC
One reason a fleet would want to go through the process of implementing electric vehicles is that electric vehicle drivetrains are much more efficient than other conventional drivetrains, says Sondhi.
“If you look at how energy can be recovered out of a stored means, like a battery, and then transferred to the wheels, an electric drivetrain is one of the most efficient drivetrains.”
Another clear advantage is zero tailpipe emissions, especially while driving urban routes.
“Inner-city routes, even with CNG, will still have some sort of emissions,” he says. “But with electric vehicles, the emissions is basically zero.”
An additional advantage of the adoption EV technology is that it helps reduce dependence on crude oil by displacing oil use with the use of using electricity. Electric technology offers fleets the ability to power their vehicles through ‘multiple sources,’ instead of relying heavily on one source of fuel, notes Sondhi.
OTHER TECHNOLOGIES
For all of these reasons, FedEx decided to move ahead with testing electric vehicles, among other alternate fuel sources.
FedEx first visited the idea of alternate fuels to power their vehicles in the mid-1990s. Among other technologies, the company looked into electric vehicles with lead-acid batteries and eventually moving to nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, until testing was stalled.
It wasn’t until 2007 when FedEx began revisiting all-electric vehicles because of the development of lithium-ion battery technology.
After introducing electric vehicles to select fleets in their London markets in 2008, the company began a pilot program in the Los Angeles area. With its pilot program, FedEx has the opportunity to test EV vehicles wherever suitable, usually sticking to shorter, urban routes.
PROPER TRAINING
FedEx has developed a regular maintenance program in order to handle maintenance and repairs for its electric vehicles.
Its technicians are trained through the EV manufacturers to handle the high voltages of EV systems, Sondhi says. “Rather than just a 12-volt system, you’re now dealing with 300 volts, depending on the manufacturer.”
Along with education on handling these high-voltage systems, he explains repairs will move away from the mechanical side to an emphasis on fully electrical systems. “There will be more electro-mechanical systems. We won’t be changing a lot of fluids, because these are all electric motors.”
RIGHT SIZE
FedEx began its domestic pilot program in L.A. with the rollout of 19 International eStar electric vehicles. Sondhi says the plan is to introduce another set of pilot vehicles in a different market very soon.
“What we’re specifically looking at targeting right now is the pick-up and delivery vehicle segment, which is typically the Class 3 to 4 segments,” he notes.
Because of the urban routes, the company needs to determine the size of the vehicle they’d like to use. A truck which has a longer mileage range isn’t necessarily always the best option.
By way of example, Sondhi says FedEx’s pick-up and delivery vehicles that operate in Manhattan typically only operate about 20 miles per day. Buying a truck with a 100-mile range would be a very costly proposition because the longer an EV’s range, and thus its battery capacity, the more expensive the vehicle purchase price.
There are also different battery charge characteristics to consider, he adds. A 50-mile EV truck might require a 3- to 4-hour recharge while a 100-mile truck might need 8 hours.
Another important consideration in the choice of an EV, says Sondhi, is factoring in vehicle auxiliary loads as part of the mileage. For instance, if FedEx buys a 100-mile truck, it will put the vehicle on a route that does not exceed 50 miles a day because total driving distance is also dependent upon the types of auxiliary loads that are added. If the truck’s heater and wipers are used for long periods of time, the range will be reduced.
RECHARGE REQUIREMENTS
Once a fleet finds an electric vehicle to suit its needs, it should then figure out how to charge those vehicles repeatedly and efficiently.
Electrification of transportation is a major challenge, says Sondhi, and it needs to be done in a responsible manner, taking into consideration the local infrastructure. Recharging electric vehicles now requires tapping into the same electrical grid (an interconnected network for delivering electricity from suppliers to consumers) that is already being used by both businesses and households.
Sondhi stresses the importance of finding a way to recharge electric vehicles in a responsible manner.
“Electrification of transportation is beyond the truck. Before anyone does this at a mass scale and add depots, we need to work to understand that local infrastructure.”
Simplifying fleet electrification through partnership and flexible technology
Plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles are not only the future, but increasingly the new reality for fleet operations, according to Chuck Reardon, commercial vice president of Dow Kokam, a company that develops and manufactures technologically advanced and economically viable battery solutions for the transportation, defense, industrial and medical industries.
“Vehicle electrification using lithium-ion batteries provides solutions to lowering fuel costs, meeting emission mandates and reducing payload constraints, while at the same time increasing total possible delivery hours and reducing cost per work cycle,” he says.
Many fleet owners, however, are still skeptical about whether electric vehicles using lithium-ion batteries are a better total cost of ownership solution. This, maintains Reardon, is often because they overlook the battery supplier’s ability to provide the partnership and insight necessary to support a successful transition to electric vehicles.
“Advanced lithium-ion battery technology is already capable of meeting the range, power and duty cycle needs to fulfill the full range of fleet missions’ types and lower the total cost of ownership of vehicles,” he says. Battery-powered vehicles and hybrids of all types have been integrated into fleets worldwide to cut down on fuel and operating costs.
Operationally, electrification minimizes repairs and downtime for vehicles, and batteries are reaching a decade of useful life with high safety records, notes Reardon. The ability to cut down on noise and greenhouse gas emissions has also started to realize cost savings by avoiding costly fines and regulations.
“Just as critical as the technology is the knowledge and experience to implement it properly to achieve the best payback, and that requires collaboration with the vehicle manufacturers and battery suppliers.”
Every fleet has unique mission needs. The better the OEMs and battery providers understand those needs, the more effectively an electrification solution can be designed to fit that fleet, he says. A battery system designed for an all-electric Class 4 shuttle bus isn’t the same as one for a hybrid Class 2 utility pickup truck.
“An understanding of the exact needs, work cycles and operating costs of the fleet with the ability to design flexible battery systems will result in optimal solutions for specific mission profiles.
“Today’s advanced lithium-ion battery technology is enabling the transition to electric vehicles, but it is coordination and collaboration between fleet owners, OEMs and battery manufactures that will unlock the greatest payback and opportunities for fleet electrification,” says Reardon.
Electric Truck Taskforce
With the onset and subsequent adoption of electric vehicle (EV) technology by more fleets, CALSTART (Clean Transportation Technologies and Solutions) has been fronting a taskforce to address common issues among fleets, manufacturers and suppliers.
CALSTART senior vice president Bill Van Amburg is heading up the creation of the Electric Truck Taskforce, a division of the Hybrid Technology User's Forum (HTUF) - a program to speed the commercialization of medium and heavy duty hybrid and high-efficiency technologies.
One of the taskforce’s objectives is to create business models which would show the payback on adopting electric vehicle technology, such as the infrastructure solutions for recharging multiple vehicles and creating common component interfaces among suppliers and manufacturers.
“We want to design a road map for this technology so we can achieve the most success and the best spread of the technology, and not be held back by barriers we didn't anticipate,” says Van Amburg.
With about 50 to 75 companies and fleets currently expressing interest, Van Amburg hopes to get more groups involved in order to generate conversation through conference calls, user surveys and information sharing lists on the drawbacks and concerns fleets face with adopting EV technology.
The taskforce wants to reach more fleets that are interested and want to get a feel for how EV technology could work for them, he says. This would be “be real instructive on what we’ve got to do to reach that next group of people who think they could use it, but really have to be more convinced. What are the barriers for them to adoption of this new technology?”
For more information on the Electric Truck Taskforce, or to get involved, contact Bill Van Amburg at [email protected], or visit www.calstart.org.
About the Author
Erica Schueller
Media Relations Manager | Navistar
Erica Schueller is the Media Relations Manager for Navistar.
Before joining Navistar, Schueller served as Editorial Director of the Endeavor Commercial Vehicle Group. The commercial vehicle group includes the following brands: American Trucker, Bulk Transporter, Fleet Maintenance, FleetOwner, Refrigerated Transporter, and Trailer/Body Builders brands.
An award-winning journalist, Schueller has reported and written about the vehicle maintenance and repair industry her entire career. She has received accolades for her reporting and editing in the commercial and automotive vehicle fields by the Truck Writers of North America (TWNA), the International Automotive Media Competition (IAMC), the Folio: Eddie & Ozzie Awards and the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) Azbee Awards.
Schueller has received recognition among her publishing industry peers as a recipient of the 2014 Folio Top Women in Media Rising Stars award, acknowledging her accomplishments of digital content management and assistance with improving the print and digital products in the Vehicle Repair Group. She was also named one Women in Trucking’s 2018 Top Women in Transportation to Watch.
She is an active member of a number of industry groups, including the American Trucking Associations' (ATA) Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC), the Auto Care Association's Young Auto Care Networking Group, GenNext, and Women in Trucking.
In December 2018, Schueller graduated at the top of her class from the Waukesha County Technical College's 10-week professional truck driving program, earning her Class A commercial driver's license (CDL).
She has worked in the vehicle repair and maintenance industry since 2008.