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On Thursday, Daimler announced that it would bring its line of short-haul electric trucks to the US. The United Parcel Service (UPS) will buy the first three trucks, and Daimler is also offering eight trucks to New York City-based non-profits, including the Wildlife Conservation Society, the New York Botanical Garden, Habitat for Humanity New York City, and Big Reuse Brooklyn.
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The Fuso eCanter trucks will have a range of 62 miles (or about 100km) and will be sold in Japan and Europe as well. Daimler said it's only planning on producing 500 trucks in the next year, but it intends to start mass-producing the trucks in 2019. It's unclear how much these trucks cost.The trucks have a load capacity of three and a half tons, Daimler said, with a powertrain that draws on "six high-voltage lithium-ion battery packs with 420 V and 13.8 kWh each."
New York City and the Bronx in particular have asthma rates several times the national average. Many blame the high levels of trucking in the city. Shifting delivery fleets to EVs could help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @04:34PM
Yes. Even using your numbers, 30-40 miles of travel from a local depot inside a city is a lot of ground covered and a lot of potential mass delivered. Is it worthwhile to use such narrow-purpose vehicles? It may well be, particularly if they can directly replace the work done by existing ICE trucks in high-density population centers, and do so at comparable or less "fuel" and maintenance cost. EVs may currently be more earth-unfriendly than efficient ICE vehicles, but reducing vehicular exhaust in high-density city centers is likely a good idea if financially feasible.