Originally published on CleanTechnica and on CleanTechnica.
500 Electric Trash Trucks For Shenzhen
When BYD moves, the world listens, so when the behemoth new energy company stepped into electric trucks in 2012, it was big news. That news gets a bit more real today as the company has inked a deal with two companies in its home town of Shenzhen, China, for 500 of its electric refuse trucks.
The vehicles are absolute workhorses, with a 280 kilometer | 174 mile range when fully loaded and a hauling capacity of 10.6 cubic meters | 374 cubic feet, the T10ZT will feel at home in just about any city around the world.
With all its technical prowess, the new electric refuse truck by BYD will ruin the habits of millions around the world. No longer will procrastinators be able to wait until they hear the refuse truck roll into the neighborhood to run out with the trash, curlers in hair and pants half-buckled.
BYD has a wide range of plug-in hybrid electric and fully electric cars, buses, shuttles, and trucks that come in a wide range of sizes and shapes. In Shenzhen in January, the company had a sampling of its plug-in vehicles on display at its campus including its popular e6 taxi, mini buses like those purchased for Jeju Island in Korea, it’s larger K9 bus, a garbage truck, cement mixer, and even a full size street sweeper.
Shenzhen is BYD’s home turf, and the company has been extremely aggressive with the complete transformation of its transit bus system to electric buses with over 16,000 of those coming from BYD, supported by a hefty fleet of its e6 taxis.
BYD is also making progress in the North American market which it supports out of its Los Angeles North American Headquarters and its bus and truck factory just a few miles inland in Lancaster, California. In October, BYD completed an expansion that tripled the size of its Lancaster factory followed just a few short months later by breaking ground on another 100,000 square foot expansion.
200 Electric Trash Trucks For Shenzhen
Following on the heels of a deal for 500 electric refuse trucks in Shenzhen a few days ago, BYD announced another deal for an impressive 200 electric refuse trucks in Indaiatuba, Brazil.
The deal was made with Corpus Saneamento e Obras Ltd (Corpus), a refuse collection company based in Indaiatuba and represents the largest electric truck deal for BYD in the international market. The electric refuse trucks ordered by Corpus weigh in at 21 metric tons when fully loaded, and the first 20 BYD T8A trucks will be delivered to the Brazilian city of Indaiatuba, São Paulo, in September. The complete order of 200 trucks will be fulfilled over 5 years, with the last trucks in the order arriving in 2023.
“Vehicle emissions and noise pollution are major problems in cities,” said BYD President and Chairman Wang Chuanfu who was present at the ceremony. “BYD’s technology solves these issues while making Brazil an even better place to live.”
The trucks have a range of just over 100 kilometers and can recharge up to 100% in just 3 hours, making them a great fit for the majority of refuse collection routes, with their predictable travel distances and daytime-only operations. If two shifts of operation were required, the 3-hour recharge time allows for time between operating shifts to recharge before a second shift were to start.
“BYD has entered the stage of the commercial application of e-trucks and it can also drive its battery business, which is expected to be independent soon,” electric vehicle analyst Hu Feng of the Shenzhen Gaogong Industry Research Center told China Daily.
Strategists are looking hard at BYD’s e-bus segment, which is already garnering orders in the thousands from single transit agencies, but not a lot of attention is being directed toward the e-truck segment. The last few weeks have opened the eyes of many as BYD has signed three large deals for e-trucks that indicate the readiness of global markets to commit to electrifying their fleets with BYD’s products.
Wang Liusheng, Chief Analyst for the automotive industry at CSM Securities, sees the deals as early indicators of a market segment that needs more from BYD before it will grow significantly, noting that, “Sales of e-trucks could bring an additional income to BYD’s current business, but if they want to expand the market, battery energy density and endurance ability need to be further improved.”
We have reached out to BYD for more details on its progress with e-trucks and will update this article if/when we hear back.
Images by Kyle Field | CleanTechnica and BYD