Are Electric Trucks on the Horizon?
“Ian Wright left soon after Elon Musk took Tesla’s financial steering wheel in 2004, but now he’s back and determined to electrify a slow and ungainly automotive beast: the commercial truck.
“Besides the fact that modern cars are already very clean, your average Toyota Camry driver only uses about 600 gallons a year, while a garbage truck will use 14,000,” says Ian Wright
“It makes the most economic sense to focus energies on a sector where you can displace the most fuel,” especially true now that gas has plummeted to under $50 a barrel, says Wright. “When you switch a garbage truck to electric power, you’re saving about $50,000 in fuel and $30,000 in maintenance a year.”
“Companies gradually are buying Wright’s pitch. His electric powertrain start-up, Wrightspeed, last year contracted with FedEx to retrofit 25 of its medium- to heavy duty-trucks with battery-powered engines that can be recharged through regenerative braking or by small turbines fueled by natural gas or propane.”