Truck electrification is beginning to reach its stride. Companies are in some sort of a race, which will result in a lot of new electric trucks being introduced next year. You‘ve heard of Tesla Semi, Cummins Aeos, Daimler and maybe even Volvo‘s plans to introduce new electric trucks in 2019. And now Renault is joining the crowd.
It would be easy to think that Tesla started this trend with its Semi – a super fast and efficient semi-truck, which can reach 97 km/h in just 20 seconds while pulling a heavy load. However, this impressive machine was not the first electric truck to be announced. For example, Daimler has been experimenting with electric technology in its trucks for quite some time already. The main focus of Daimler is different than the one Tesla. Daimler is looking forward to introduce electric urban delivery trucks, which are smaller and typically travel smaller distances every day. Cummins had a similar idea when it introduced its Aeos – a day cab semi-truck with a range of around 160 km.
It seems that this trend is here to stay. Numerous manufacturers proved that electric heavy duty trucks are actually possible. Furthermore, they can be relatively affordable and easy to live with. If everything works as expected, Tesla Semi might actually be one of the most reliable semi-trucks in the market. Meanwhile big current manufacturers were not so vocal about their plans to start production of electric trucks.
Have you heard about electric trucks from Scania, MAN, Peterbilt and other giants of the truck industry? No. While there are certainly some plans, they are not developed to the stage of Tesla Semi or Cummins Aeos or even Nikola One. This new segment is up for grabs for the new players. However, some interesting projects are already coming from the well-known truck manufacturers.
Volvo Trucks has announced that it will introduce an electric urban distribution truck in 2019. While long haul machines are certainly in the plans, Volvo believes that city operations is where the electric trucks could thrive. In fact, Volvo said that electric urban distribution trucks could even work at night, helping to reduce city noise and congestion. And now finally we heard from Renault.
Renault Trucks has just announced that it will launch a new electric truck range in 2019. Pretty much at the same time when many other companies are going to introduce their first electric trucks – it is going to be an interesting year. However, Renault is not just following current trends. This company has been experimenting with electric technology since 2009, so it is about time to introduce some products into the market. For now the range will consist of urban and peri-urban delivery trucks. They are unlikely to feature such an extreme design like Tesla Semi or Nikola One. The reason is that smaller trucks do not have such big cabins, so there is not much room for extravagant design opportunities. However, we do expect some rounded corners, lack of big grill and some interesting paint schemes.
So let’s see what we have. Daimler is preparing electric urban delivery trucks for intercity operations, Volvo is focusing on urban delivery and Renault is going to do a little bit of both. None of the major truck manufacturers in this article are preparing big semi-trucks, not even with day cabs. What does that mean?
It simply means that the old, trusted brands are letting new players to take on this market segment. They can jump on-board at any point they want, but for now they will just sit back and look how new manufacturers are going to do. Who knows, maybe smaller urban delivery trucks is actually a smarter step to this new age of electric trucking.
