UPS working with Workhorse on “zero emission” vehicles
UPS has revealed plans to deploy 50 plug-in electric delivery trucks that it is says will be “comparable in acquisition cost to conventional-fueled trucks without any subsidies”.
In a statement issued yesterday (22 February), UPS said this was an “industry first that is breaking a key barrier to large scale fleet adoption”.
UPS said it is working with manufacturer Workhorse “to design the vehicles from the ground up, with zero tailpipe emissions”.
Carlton Rose, President, Global Fleet Maintenance and Engineering for UPS, said: “Electric vehicle technology is rapidly improving with battery, charging and smart grid advances that allow us to specify our delivery vehicles to eliminate emissions, noise and dependence on diesel and gasoline.
“With our scale and real-world duty cycles, these new electric trucks will be a quantum leap forward for the purpose-built UPS delivery fleet. The all electric trucks will deliver by day and re-charge overnight. We are uniquely positioned to work with our partners, communities and customers to transform freight transportation.”
The trucks will have a range of approximately 100 miles between charges, which UPS described as “ideal for delivery routes in and around cities”.
“This innovation is the result of Workhorse working closely with UPS over the last 4 years refining our electric vehicles with hard fought lessons from millions of road miles and thousands of packages delivered,” said Steve Burns, CEO of Workhorse Group. “Our goal is to make it easy for UPS and others to go electric by removing prior roadblocks to large scale acceptance such as cost.”
UPS will test the vehicles primarily on urban routes across the country, including Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles.
Following the “real-world test deployments”, UPS and Workhorse will fine-tune the design in time to deploy a larger fleet in 2019 and beyond. UPS said that it expects the operating cost of the new plug-in electric vehicle to be less than a similarly equipped diesel or gasoline vehicle and its goal is to make the new electric vehicles a “standard selection, where appropriate, in its fleet of the future”.
UPS already has more than 300 electric vehicles deployed in Europe and the U.S., and nearly 700 hybrid electric vehicles. The company recently ordered 125 new fully-electric Semi tractors to be built by Tesla in 2019, the largest pre-order to date. Additionally, last September, UPS announced it will become the first commercial customer in the U.S. to start using three medium-duty electric trucks from Daimler Trucks Fuso brand, called the eCanter.
