Penske Logistics says it has successfully logged more than 10,000 over-the-road miles making multiple daily store deliveries on dedicated routes in Southern California for a quick-service restaurant chain using two electric Freightliner Innovation Fleet eCascadias.
“For a fleet that runs trucks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, 10,000 miles may not seem like a milestone, but we believe we are the first fleet in the United States to make daily store deliveries using battery-electric heavy-duty tractors for regional distribution,” says Marc Althen, president of Penske Logistics. “We’re quite impressed with the performance of the eCascadia.”
The eCascadias operated by Penske Logistics are part of Freightliner’s Electric Innovation Fleet. The fleet is testing the integration of battery-electric trucks in large-scale fleet operations. The Freightliner Innovation Fleet is supported by a partnership between Daimler Trucks North America and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which focuses on improving air quality in California’s South Coast Basin and partially funded the Innovation Fleet with a nearly $16 million grant.
Penske Truck Leasing took delivery of its first Freightliner eCascadia in August and plans to deploy 10 eCascadias in its Southern California operations. The fleet is supported by a network of heavy-duty electric vehicle charging stations at five Penske Truck Leasing facilities in Southern California. Penske also performs preventive maintenance at these locations.
Penske Logistics provides dedicated contract carriage services through its network in North America.
Supporters of electric trucks should consider equitable resource distribution. The Daimler truck battery pack is 550kwh, roughly 110x the capacity of a Ford/Prius plug-in hybrid pack. Driven many more miles daily, BEV battery packs can drive an average of 100,000 miles, more or less. The Daimler battery pack of ONE big rig should last maybe 2 years before replacement. The Battery packs of 110 PHEVs should last 10 years. And when the household PHEV pack can no longer reliably power the car, they can be stationary low-power supply. It looks to me like Daimler wants to run through the world’s… Read more »