Solo Advanced Vehicle Technologies (Solo AVT), a vehicle hardware company in the freight transportation industry, has revealed the design and specifications of the SD1, its long-haul battery-electric Class 8 truck tailored specifically for autonomous driving.
The SD1 was designed from the ground up and includes full, aerospace-level system redundancy and a low drag coefficient enabled by a complete redesign that removes the human onboard. The long-haul battery-electric SD1 features a range of 500+ miles, active aerodynamics, tires designed to minimize rolling resistance, exterior lighting to communicate to pedestrians and other road users, a unique sound signature, a modular design for serviceability to maximum uptime, and multi-speed tandem e-axles with integrated electric motors.
The truck is designed to ensure turnaround times on par with today’s trucks and is compatible with fast chargers while also being able to utilize existing networks. It is also trailer-agnostic – meaning it can haul anything – and is built to integrate with all standard loading docks. It can haul an equivalent weight to today’s Class 8 trucks. The sensor arrangement allows for the easy integration of any autonomous driver system and features a proprietary software control interface.
“The debut of our SD1 design is the next step in our journey towards decarbonizing the freight industry. We look forward to being the step change this massive industry needs as we develop innovative technologies to deliver a battery-electric long-haul Class 8 truck with over 500 miles of range,” says Graham Doorley, founder and CEO of Solo AVT.
“The demands on leaders across freight, logistics, retail and other categories can only be met in a sustainable way by the convergence of two tech-enabled opportunities: battery-electric transportation at long-haul range and autonomy,” Doorley continues. “Autonomous systems today won’t work on existing or retrofit platforms at scale. At Solo AVT, we’re solving both of these challenges as we develop, design and engineer the SD1 to achieve over 500 miles of range with an autonomous truck from day one.”
Additional details on Solo AVT’s approach to designing the SD1 include high levels of system redundancy to make it the safest truck platform; highly efficient, multi-speed tandem axles with integrated 600 kW (total) electric motors; aerodynamics to reduce draft and increase range; and modular integration of the AV Driver.