Tesla Motors Battery Pack in Commercial Vehicle

[green01]

Green Car Congress reports that Tesla is supplying its battery pack for Commercial Vehicle use.

Green Car Congress: Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporations All-Electric Walk-In Van Chassis Debuts at NTEA Work Truck Show; Enova Drive System, Tesla Battery Pack


"The FCCC electric WIV also marks the first commercial vehicle application of a Tesla Motors Li-ion battery pack, which provide up to a 100-mile driving range on a single charge."

With the intense EV competition coming from all the major players, Tesla needs to find new business opportunities like this.

[TEG]

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Couldn't they make it a bit more aerodynamic?

It looks like a barn.

[TEG]

Trying to look like the ubiquitous Fed-Ex delivery truck, so they warm up to the idea of buying them out of familiarity?

[TEG]

Ease of ingress/egress while carrying packages and ease of fixing body work cheaply/simply may win out over aerodynamics in this case. If it just gets used for 15MPH average speed doing deliveries in town it may not matter much.

[Todd Burch]

It just occurred to me that EV's are ideal for delivery vehicles...lots of sitting still (no battery use beats idling!), starts and stops (regenerative braking), and a relatively fixed daily range.

Guess I just didn't think much about it before...maybe I'm just slow!

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I think there should be a Presidential mandate that all Post office delivery vehicles should be electric by the end of 2012.

[PopSmith]

I think there should be a Presidential mandate that all Post office delivery vehicles should be electric by the end of 2012.

Converting the mailing fleets (and others) to pure electrics could save the government, and taxpayers, millions in gasoline and engine maintenance/repairs, not to mention the environmental benefits of going pure electric. Since the Postal Service is a government company a federal mandate wouldn't be necessary, as far as I know.

[vfx]

I just want to get the ball rolling. If the announcement was made the EV parts makers, battery suppliers, motor builders etc. would have a guaranteed high volume customer so prices would plummet immediately.

The frustrating part is that the "post office" has been running Electric vehicle test programs in different areas and with different administrations for the last 20 years. You never hear about the results but I'm betting they always get cold feet because it's best to go big and that's a tough sell. That or they start the 2 year test program with one group and it's finished with another.

[TEG]

It just occurred to me that EV's are ideal for delivery vehicles...lots of sitting still (no battery use beats idling!), starts and stops (regenerative braking), and a relatively fixed daily range.

Another big win for EVs (and hybrids) in this case is regen braking and low end torque. For highway vehicles doing constant high RPM cruising, electrics have less benefit over gas, but for stop and go urban cycle driving, electric acceleration and regen is so superior. Also regen is more helpful with big delivery vehicles because you spent more energy to accelerate that big heavly load, so you really do want to recapture some of that energy when you need to slow down.