Diesel-powered freight haulage is a dirty business, and we've seen a number of truck makers try to clean up the industry's act, including big names like Daimler, Volvo and Renault, but also newcomers such as Volta and Rivian. The UK's Tevva is going for the long haul with the launch of its medium duty electric truck.
The Tevva Truck is the result of seven years of research and development from a team that includes folks who previously worked for Bentley, Alexander Dennis and Jaguar, and more than 200,00 miles (350,000 km) of in-fleet testing.
The company says that the 7.5-tonne (Class 5) truck is built on "an extremely reliable BEV powertrain paired with an exceptionally robust and proven truck-derived chassis." It can accommodate 16 euro pallets of cargo at more than 2 tonnes in weight, and will be available as a battery electric only vehicle for up to 160 miles (257.5 km) of per-charge driving, with the company currently testing technologies that will allow the battery pack to get a full top up in one hour.
But for fleet operators looking to have their vehicles on the road for longer, the company also has a patented range extender available that can run on hydrogen fuel cells for 310 miles (~500 km) of green freight hauling.
The Tevva Truck's flexible chassis can be fitted out with a tail lift, tipper, crane, curtain side, temperature controlled tech, and so on depending on operator needs. A full telematics suite allows for remote monitoring of systems, and the vehicle can be supplied in left- or right-hand drive configurations.
"Technology is transforming the commercial vehicle sector at pace, making it safer, greener, and entirely more efficient," said the company's founder and CEO, Asher Bennett. "But meaningful change is a gradual process, it must happen one step at a time, even if those changes are needed in fast succession. The Tevva Truck provides a natural transition into electrification for fleet managers, providing total peace of mind and a compelling total cost of ownership proposition, with no compromise on range and reliability and minimized compromise on payload."
Pre-orders for the Tevva Truck are open now, with production at a brand new 11,000 sq m (118,400 sq ft) Thames Freeport facility in London due to start in July 2022 and deliveries to customers following in the third quarter. The 7.5-tonne model is intended to be the first of a series of electric trucks from the company, with the range of battery-electric and fuel-cell range-extender models going up to 19.5 tonnes (Class 8).
Source: Tevva Motors
