Australia Post is going to add 20 electric delivery trucks to its fleet, yet they will be relegated to short routes because of their restricted driving range.
The Fuso eCanter has about a similar size battery pack as a Hyundai Kona electric city SUV.
As a result of the electric truck’s weight and 3000kg payload, the Fuso eCanter has a greatest driving range of 100km when completely stacked – as opposed to the 480km range of a comparative battery pack in a more modest, lighter traveler vehicle.
A diesel-powered delivery truck of comparable size has about 300km of driving range between refills.
It would require around 30 hours to recharge the Fuso eCanter electric truck from void utilizing a family power socket, however Australia Post will have various fast chargers that can reboot the electric trucks in about an hour.
Australia Post will rent 20 of the electric Fuso eCanter trucks for six years from October 2021.
The electric trucks will be gotten back to Fuso toward the finish of the six-year rent.
While Australia Post says it has around 3000 “electric vehicles,” the greater part of those are forklifts and other warehouse vehicles not intended for the street.
Be that as it may, Australia Post has explored different avenues regarding electric delivery vans already.
In May 2014, the mail service provider tested two Renault Kangoo ZE Maxi vans in Melbourne, prior to adding two additional vehicles for a preliminary based out of Sydney.
For the tech heads, Fuso says the eCanter is controlled by six liquid cooled lithium-ion battery packs mounted under the vehicle.
Albeit the battery pack has a 82.8kWh limit, just 66kWh of that is “usable power.” By examination, the Hyundai Kona and Kia Niro electric city SUVs have 64kWh battery packs.
Fuso says the electric motor in the eCanter delivery truck has an output of 135kW/390Nm, accessible “the moment the accelerator pedal is pressed.”
The Fuso eCanter has a Gross Vehicle Mass of 7.5 tons and became the world’s first small electric truck to go into production, in 2017.
It was tested in Australia for a half year prior to being rented to Australia Post.
Notwithstanding two airbags (one each for the driver and traveler), the Fuso eCanter has autonomous emergency braking (with pedestrian detection) and lane departure warning (though not lane-keeping).
In a media proclamation, James Dixon, a representative for Australia Post said: “With the significant growth in parcel volumes, more vehicles are required in our network.”
“It makes good sense to add electric vehicles as part of this requirement. Not only will these eCanters fit our needs in this delivery category, but they will also contribute to our science-based target to reduce emissions by 15 per cent by 2025 (compared to 2019).”
