UPS has unveiled plans to deploy 50 plug-in electric delivery trucks, which it maintains will be comparable in acquisition cost to conventionally-fuelled lorries without any subsidies.
The logistics provider says the move is an "industry first that is breaking a key barrier to large scale fleet adoption" and will collaborate with Workhorse Group to design the vehicles from the ground up, with zero tailpipe emissions.
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"Electric vehicle technology is rapidly improving with battery, charging and smart grid advances that allow us to specify our delivery vehicles to eliminate emissions, noise and dependence on diesel and gasoline," said UPS president, Global Fleet Maintenance and Engineering, Carlton Rose.
"With our scale and real-world duty cycles, these new electric trucks will be a quantum leap forward for the purpose-built UPS delivery fleet. The all electric trucks will deliver by day and re-charge overnight."
Each truck will have a range of around 100 miles between charges with the new vehicles joining the company's Rolling Lab, a growing fleet of more than 9,000 alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles.
"This innovation is the result of Workhorse working closely with UPS over the last 4 years refining our electric vehicles with hard fought lessons from millions of road miles and thousands of packages delivered," said Workhorse Group CEO, Steve Burns.
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By GlobalDataOur goal is to make it easy for UPS and others to go electric by removing prior roadblocks to large scale acceptance such as cost."
UPS will test the vehicles primarily on urban routes across the country, including Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles.
Following real-world test deployments, UPS and Workhorse will fine-tune the design in time to deploy a larger fleet in 2019 and beyond. Since most of the maintenance costs of a vehicle are associated with the engine and related components, UPS expects the operating cost of the new plug-in electric vehicle to be less than a similarly equipped diesel or gasoline vehicle.
UPS' goal is to make the new electric vehicles a standard selection, where appropriate, in its fleet of the future. UPS has around 35,000 diesel or gasoline trucks in its fleet, which are comparable in size and are used in routes with duty cycles, or daily miles travelled similar to the new electric vehicles.
UPS has more than 300 electric vehicles deployed in Europe and the US, as well as nearly 700 hybrid electric vehicles. The company recently ordered 125 new fully-electric Semi tractors to be built by Tesla in 2019, the largest pre-order to date.
Additionally, last September, UPS announced it will become the first commercial customer in the US to start using three medium-duty electric lorries from Daimler Trucks Fuso brand, known as the eCanter.
