Production Freightliner eCascadia Launched

[JSH]

After 4 years of trials with key customers - Freightliner launched the production version of their eCascadia yesterday at the ACT Expo.

The long range version goes 230 miles with a 438 kWh battery (usable capacity) and charges from 0-80% in 90 minutes on a 270 kWh charger.

https://freightliner.com/trucks/ecascadia/


https://www.ccjdigital.com/alternati...tric-ecascadia

[freebeard]

Whoever cropped that photo disrespected the Old Town sign.

A 438 kWh battery would make quite a fire.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by JSH

After 4 years of trials with key customers - Freightliner launched the production version of their eCascadia yesterday at the ACT Expo.

The long range version goes 230 miles with a 438 kWh battery (usable capacity) and charges from 0-80% in 90 minutes on a 270 kWh charger.

How are the power and load ratings in comparison to their ICE counterparts?

Looks very interesting for local freight.

Does it recharge on CCS? If not, why? CCS already has some 350 kW capable chargers out in the wild. I would have thought they would at least be capable of maxing that charging rate.

Any idea what their production capacity is?

EDIT- Looks like a proprietary charging system, so you must purchase the Freightliner charging solution. What a missed opportunity. Then again, it was only recently CCS was capable of such fast charging, so this was being developed long before.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

How are the power and load ratings in comparison to their ICE counterparts?

Looks very interesting for local freight.

Does it recharge on CCS? If not, why? CCS already has some 350 kW capable chargers out in the wild. I would have thought they would at least be capable of maxing that charging rate.

Any idea what their production capacity is?

EDIT- Looks like a proprietary charging system, so you must purchase the Freightliner charging solution. What a missed opportunity. Then again, it was only recently CCS was capable of such fast charging, so this was being developed long before.

Power is 320 HP to 470 HP with way more torque than a diesel
GCW is 65,000 for a single rear axle / 82,000 for a dual rear axle
Tractor weight is 16,350 - 21,800 depending on configuration.

Target markets for BEV trucks are Drayage, local delivery (things like beverage and food delivery trucks) and regional point to point.


Charges on standard CCS. Frieghtliner will sell you a charger but you don't have to use theirs. Freightliner got around the old limits of CCS when this was in development 4 years ago by designing it to use two CCS plugs.

[Drifter]

230 miles is the long range version? And 6 hours to charge it (90 minutes is for the 194 kWh version)? Oof!! I presume all of those miles are only available in the summer on a new battery too.

That would still work fine for some of the hyper local port haulers & fuel carriers, but buying an class8 EV with that little range is a lot of risk for a small fleet - it seriously limits your pool of customers. I had a buddy who hauled containers from Oakland to Fremont for a certain Solar/EV company. Then that company moved much of their production to Reno. 230 miles of range would have worked fine for the original contract, but wouldn't be sufficient for the modified contract a few years later...

[redpoint5]

At 10 cents per kWh, the EV truck costs about 20 cents per mile in "fuel". An 8 MPG diesel rig might be 50 cents per mile.

Running on electrons is at least half the fuel cost. Should be much less maintenance too, increasing the uptime of the rig.

I'm curious what the maximum regen capability is, and what percent of braking is accomplished with regen vs friction brakes in typical operation? I would guess that a truck could avoid friction braking altogether when descending a steep grade of say, 6% fully loaded.

[Drifter]

Oh I can't wait for EV trucks. There is so much wasted fuel idling (especially at night for long haulers), running PTOs, warming up, slow-speed maneuvering in parking lots/industrial parks, etc.

On flat ground, our dry vans needed about 100 horsepower to go 60mph which would be about 0.8 miles per kW. I wonder why Freightliner is only getting ~0.5 miles?

[redpoint5]

Oh, and are these trucks compatible with refers?

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Drifter

230 miles is the long range version? And 6 hours to charge it (90 minutes is for the 194 kWh version)? Oof!! I presume all of those miles are only available in the summer on a new battery too.

That would still work fine for some of the hyper local port haulers & fuel carriers, but buying an class8 EV with that little range is a lot of risk for a small fleet - it seriously limits your pool of customers. I had a buddy who hauled containers from Oakland to Fremont for a certain Solar/EV company. Then that company moved much of their production to Reno. 230 miles of range would have worked fine for the original contract, but wouldn't be sufficient for the modified contract a few years later...

Yes, 230 miles is the long range version. Freightliner has been running a test fleet with about 50 customers for 4 years. I’m sure they have the usage case nailed down. (Same as Ford saying the average fleet owned Transit only drives 74 miles a day)

It is 90 minutes to recharge any of the battery sizes 0 – 80% (Spec below from Freightliner’s website). However I doubt too many of these trucks will be fast charged instead of charged overnight.

These aren’t for small fleets. These are for the UPS, Fed EX, Ryder, Penske, Sysco, Coca-Cola of the world that operate huge fleets and track every route and truck and know their usage. There is a Sysco video on Youtube with them testing a preproduction eCascadia with the small battery and single axle. They say it can handle more than 50% of their routes on one charge. (Sysco has a 14,000 vehicle fleet)

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I'm curious what the maximum regen capability is, and what percent of braking is accomplished with regen vs friction brakes in typical operation? I would guess that a truck could avoid friction braking altogether when descending a steep grade of say, 6% fully loaded.

From the article linked above about 20 – 30%

Originally Posted by Drifter

On flat ground, our dry vans needed about 100 horsepower to go 60mph which would be about 0.8 miles per kW. I wonder why Freightliner is only getting ~0.5 miles?

Stop, Start, Stop, Start, Stop, Start. These aren’t intended as highway cruisers. The fine print says the range is simply determined by the averaged achieved by the test fleet over those years of testing.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Oh, and are these trucks compatible with refers?

Yes. See the Sysco comment above. Reefers have fuel tanks on the trailer.

Something from the spec sheet I find surprising is the warranty. 5 years / 300K miles for the large battery but only 150K miles for the small battery.

[ksa8907]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I'm curious what the maximum regen capability is, and what percent of braking is accomplished with regen vs friction brakes in typical operation? I would guess that a truck could avoid friction braking altogether when descending a steep grade of say, 6% fully loaded.

This is something I haven't really heard discussed. When I've towed with our hybrid truck it always seems to drive way more smooth after having towed. My guess is the extra power captured from the trailer weight really packs the hybrid battery to full.
It could be completely due to the battery being 10 years old with 170k miles on it, and being nimh chemistry.... but it is a noticeable difference in driving characteristics after towing.

I would think that the battery being able to accept at least 270kw and the motor being able to generate 400+kw, mountain decent will be much more controllable that with a diesel truck.