{"id":8884,"date":"2016-05-05T16:20:49","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T16:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=8884"},"modified":"2016-05-05T16:20:49","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T16:20:49","slug":"uk-built-tevva-electric-trucks-clock-up-30000-miles-in-six-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/8884","title":{"rendered":"UK-built Tevva electric trucks clock up 30,000 miles in six months"},"content":{"rendered":"

I first wrote about UK firm Tevva Motors<\/a> back in January<\/a>. Since then, the firm’s three test trucks have been in daily use and have now clocked up\u00a0almost 30,000 miles between them.<\/p>\n

\"Tevva

One of Tevva Motors’ 7.5t test trucks, featuring the firm’s range extender electric powertrain.<\/p><\/div>\n

Tevva’s powertrain is fitted to two converted JAC N-series trucks (JAC is a large Chinese manufacturer)\u00a0and has also been retrofitted to a Mercedes-Benz Vario. All three vehicles are in daily use with\u00a0parcel giant UPS,\u00a0which\u00a0is using and managing the trucks\u00a0in the same way as the rest of its fleet.<\/p>\n

Each vehicle has Tevva\u2019s next-generation electric range extender powertrain, which Tevva says is capable of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80%, compared to an average 7.5 tonne diesel engine truck.<\/p>\n

Range extenders work but combining an electric powertrain with a petrol or diesel-powered generator,\u00a0which can be run to provide electrical power\u00a0to keep the battery topped up on longer journeys. One of the key advantages is that the\u00a0engine required is much smaller than it would be if it was used to power the vehicle directly.\u00a0Tevva’s 7.5 tonne trucks have a 1.6-litre diesel engine fitted in place of the standard model’s 3.8-litre diesel engine.<\/p>\n

Tevva’s powertrain uses the firm’s patented Predictive Range Extender Management System (PREMS) to\u00a0work out the optimum time to run the batteries during a pre-planned route. For example,\u00a0PREMS would ensure the batteries were charged to allow electric operation in urban areas before running the engine to top up the batteries during out-of-town driving. This offers significant benefits in terms of\u00a0emissions and fuel consumption.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0a recent review<\/a>, the\u00a0PREMS system has three modes, which provide varying\u00a0levels of charge, depending on the state of the batteries and expected power requirements.<\/p>\n

Tevva’s does not expect to start producing its own new trucks\u00a0for another couple of years.\u00a0However, the firm’s powertrain is now available as a retrofit\u00a0package for customers who would like\u00a0to fit it to existing trucks.<\/p>\n

Range extender systems have always seemed to me a good\u00a0medium-term\u00a0solution to\u00a0address range limitations of\u00a0all-electric vehicles. As I’ve mentioned many times before, delivery vans and\u00a0trucks are ideal candidates for\u00a0electrification because they\u00a0tend to do limited mileages on set routes each day, before returning to base each night where they can be charged.<\/p>\n

Back to base trucks doing urban deliveries are Tevva’s target market. The potential benefits seem clear, so it will be interesting to see whether any of the big fleet operators — most notably trial partner UPS — can be persuaded to take up this system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tevva Motors range extender electric powertrain is now available as a retrofit kit for existing trucks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[139],"tags":[1982],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8884"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8884"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8888,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8884\/revisions\/8888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}