[Raghuwire]

Representational image from manufacturer

Disclaimer: Lots of personal stuff mixed in a story, and some tech details.

TL; DR: Electric trailer of 55 tons Gross Combination weight, with 268KWH battery operationalized. Fun facts/Musings in the end.

Introduction: I work with a major FMCG company in logistics, and I am slowly and surely becoming a fanatic of sustainability. From day-to-day activities to industries to news to work, there is a constant thought running in my mind, how do we make this carbon neutral. For example, I always download songs, as I feel streaming songs leads to more data consumption. I avoid buying bottled water on the go, refuse water on flights, just thinking of the emissions. I strongly profess hybrid work model, and use of public transport for the same. In fact, I believe we should have a strong recycling tax & carbon tax on all new purchases, to ensure consumers pay to recycle for things they consume. In this state, one fine day 8 months back my boss called me and said, there is a manufacturer providing electric vehicles which we should induct.

The Journey to our first electric trailer: I was super excited and was already imagining myself driving one of these out during a flag off session! So, I noted down the contact of the manufacturer and setup a meeting. During the meeting my euphoria soon turned to grief when I asked him, how do we charge them, vendor replied we fast charge the batteries at 160KW! Till then, everything I had read pointed towards the fact that, we need to mix slow charge and fast charge to ensure that battery range does not degrade. Vendor was confident about the product and assured us of a 4 year/2500 charge cycle. The company being start-up, mostly building retrofit trucks out of imported Chinese parts did not instil confidence in me. Even the Tata Nexon EV and Tigor EV in my family, come with a recommendation of slow & fast charging. I laughed at myself thinking, how I got carried away, without thinking of the practicalities. I took a couple of days and called my manager up and said that this is just a gimmick, we will be in soup with a failed project. But manager was sure that we should try this, even with a 50% performance against benchmark. But my interest was lost in it & I kept procrastinating.

One fine day, I found the news that Murugappa group has taken over the startup by paying 350 crores. This piqued my interest again. By then, I had read a lot more news online, about how most trucks, even tesla is coming up only with fast chargers. Frankly with such huge battery sizes, there is no other option currently. Even our phones, can’t do without fast chargers anymore. So, went ahead with closing the rates, contracts, AMC, Transporters, etc. and post 6 months, we flagged off the electric trailer in July 2023.

First Look at our electric truck, battery size and pack is hugeee


The trailer body being built at yard

RTO issues: We were going the refurbished route, so we did expect a lot of issues with the RTO, especially – WB RTO. But even with system being greased, I did not imagine that the trucks would stand idle in factory premises for a month! Even for a new truck, we need to register the model & RTOs are not sure of handling commercial EV. Until launch we did not know that State permit was waived off for Electric commercial vehicles. A pleasant surprise this was. From getting multiple documents, to getting revised/new number plates from original RTO & the original RTO going on strike for a few days due to local reasons, it was a roller coaster ride to finally get it all done. Remember the 300+ trucks which Adani purchased, they are not registered with RTO, as they work only inside the port.

Electrical setup: Frankly speaking, if someone would have told me that operationalizing three trucks would be so difficult, entail emergency trips to factory, visits to OEM supplier, government offices, I would not believe them. The rated charging capacity of the truck is at 160 KW. The premises where we were installing the charging facility had a sanctioned load of 70 KW and was already overloaded when we replaced all gas/diesel forklifts with lead acid based electric ones. Getting the sanctioned load increased is in itself a project. We must get new transformers installed, a new HT connection, new meters, new poles, higher deposit with the WBSEDCL (discom), commissioning from the discom, clearances, approvals for the same. Post all this drawing cables from the main board to the charger and facility shutdowns for connections. This enhanced capacity took 3 months to be commissioned. But even with enhanced capacity, we can afford only 100 KW for charging.

Charger setup: The charger provided (in fact most chargers at this capacity) are modular with rectifier models of 20 KW (or other denomination). Hence, we are using 5 out of 8 modules to charge at a capacity of 100 KW. Next is how do we design the charger station. I nor anyone had done this at the company. We finally decided to have an elevated platform of 3 feet, to prevent flood /rain damage. Everything from the canopy height, canopy extension in front, to width and breadth (2.5 x 2.5m) of the station was a decision made with lot of safety margin and inputs from OEM.

Charging connection


Charging at 80KW, don’t have the pic at 100 KW

Fun fact: The canopy extension in the front is super critical. It should be just enough for the truck to not hit and the charger cable to reach without much difficulty. If it is small, when the driver comes with the charging gun, it is usually pointed up, rainwater may fill the gun opening and spoil it when connected.

A very bad illustration of the same


Charger Installation – Representational pic from other company

[Raghuwire]

Vehicle Specifications: The electric trailer is one of the largest trucks which is operating in India. (Excluding ODC).
Battery Capacity – 268 KWH
Battery composition – LFP
Battery Orientation – Vertical
Charging capacity – 160 KW
Charger type – CCS Type 2
GCW – Gross Combination weight: 55 tons
Payload – 35 Tons+
Trailer length – 45 feet (Total length – 60 feet +)
Transmission - Auto
Wheels – 22 (inclusive of trailer)
Range – 150 KMs (20-100%) range
Alarms – below 20% battery SOC
Battery & electrical warranty – 2500 cycles & 4/5-year warranty – depends on truck/contract
Cost – 2.5 X comparable Diesel variant.

Emission reduction: There is no standard for the emission reduction due to electrification of CV, like industry standard is to take a 20% reduction in emissions when using CNG instead of diesel on well to wheel model. It depends on diesel lifecycle at the location, renewable % of grid, approximate of emissions for manufacturing. (Battery from China, rare earth metals from the world over, refurbished old diesel chassis, end of life recycling – how much does this discount the initial manufacturing emissions, vehicle usage (fixed production emission can be offset against each km), driver efficiency, loadability, charging time etc.). In our case, taking the grid emission factor of 0.81 kg/KWh we get around 15% lesser emissions compared to a standard diesel truck. But it is said that the current emission factor of our grid is 0.71 kg/kwh, in which case reduction would be higher.

Performance: It has been only few days since we have started operations. We are still training drivers, and they are adapting to the regen, auto transmission, electric pickup, silent ride. Edit: In the last one month since I have taken to post this thread, we are getting around 130KMs/charge. (25% spare charge left)

Safety: As an MNC, the company I work with, attaches great importance to safety. We generally use track & trace for all our trucks. All our driver feedback is lag based and post the violation and based on govt mandated governors. Here along with OEM, we have set up 40 Km speed limit electronically, all driving parameters are available online to monitor.

Other Musings

Replaceable batteries: The batteries cost a bomb, having a spare being charged, even with multiple trucks, just won’t give you commercial viability. Also, these batteries weigh ~ 2.5 to 3 tons, there is no way to handle this safely and cheaply. With AIS038 phase 2 kicking in, the IP protection of battery pack have been bumped up to IP65. This will add to the weight of the battery/casings.

EV vs Diesel TCO – There are ways to make EVs very attractive, especially as businesses. With EV the fixed cost of the TCO changes drastically. Companies can buy and sublease it to gain the depreciation tax benefits. With diesel trucks the fixed component proportion is very low, to get into these jhamelas! Also, the more we run the trucks the cheaper they become compared to diesel. The parity point depends on how optimized and large your trucks are. For us the breakeven point is a minimum of 115 Kms/day. Easy-peasy, jujubee this target is!

EVs are greener? In my opinion the moment you take crude/coal/fossil fuel out of the storage (well/mine) you have increased the atmospheric carbon, which can never ever be offset without sequestration, and there is no easy/proven/cheap way to sequester carbon. In this way, if we figure out recycling of batteries, we will be greener with EVs. As I had read in one more TBHP post, if we look at the size of batteries, each EV battery will be equivalent to around 3000 mobile batteries (in our case 250KWH is equal to 5000 mobile batteries of 5000mah), so recycling will be easier. Also, when you consider regeneration, the efficiency of ICE can never match EVs, especially with our consistently growing traffic.

Driver feedback: On one such trial in Chennai with a Chinese OEM, I spoke to the driver, how his experience was. He said and I quote: “Saaaar this is like driving my scooty, no gear, no sound, full ac, it is sooperrr (translated from Tamil)”. Mind you, he was driving a fully loaded 55 feet trailer in a mix of highway and smaller side roads for the first time.

AC vs safety: One of the issues faced when trucks are air conditioned is that drivers after a full meal, are falling asleep in a quieter, air conditioned & comfortable cabins, leading to accidents. With logistics becoming leaner, most of our trucks are single driver driven, without cleaners also. No one to even keep you company and wake you up or make you aware of the dangers of the sudden comfort. So, to AC or not to AC is the question! In my opinion training, constant tracking, and driver monitoring is the solution. But did our Gadkari govt consider this, while making all trucks will be AC fitted by 2025/27 rule?

Transport: Well, how do we transport the electric trucks from manufacturing location to our site of operations? For sure, there is no charging infra from Faridabad to WB. We loaded the charged electric horse on its own trailer along with the charger, transported with help of its diesel brother. One thing we missed was, how do we unload a 10-ton horse off its own trailer? Let’s just say that our transporter runs a container terminal and found a way to get it down. I am amazed at how strong and innovative our Jugaads are.

Our first EV truck being transported on its trailer


The second lot of 2 EV trucks on second trailer

Driving a truck in India: In my opinion, driving a truck is one the toughest jobs in the country. They are driving the nation; they drive the economy. From a small pin to your latest phone to your car, everything is because of a dedicated truck driver. Constantly away from family, no proper food, harassment by police, danger of accidents & theft, unknown roads, no toilets, unending waits for loading and unloading at locations, payment of dala charges (opening/closing of truck to start process) for just loading the truck. Before they deal with the erratic, 2 and 4-wheeler drivers, they fight a mountain of issues to be on the road. After all this if there is even a small accident, locals don’t spare a second in catching and beating up the poor chap. They earn most of their money by driving the truck at a constant slow speed and avoiding braking to ensure mileage. So before cutting in front of a truck, please be mindful that, we are affecting their livelihood! My salute to all the hero truck drivers of the country.

A Little branding of 100% electric

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[speedguy]

First of all, congratulations for having your heart at right place. Decarbonization is the only way ahead to save the climate crisis that is looming large.
Since last 13 years, I work in truck industry & I know what it takes to own a truck. Moreover, in your case it is heavy e-truck which far fetched imagination for Indian truckers.
The company I work for now is an European truck giant & will soon be launching 100% e-truck with GVW of 40T. And we are giving only option of fast charging. Heck, we are coming up with a new tech called Megawatt charging which is father of fast charging to put it into perspective.
As the size of the battery demands, there is only way to charge, which is FAST! So don't worry about the aftereffects. It is almost taken care of & you will have peace of mind for atleast 6-8 years, during which your money will be recovered to the fullest & importantly, well to wheel emissions are cut off significantly.

[PreludeSH]

Congrats and thanks for the article from trucking perspective of EVs. The weight of the battery seems enormous. I guess with the range they can be charged only at the home location today ?
I think we need a way of charging battery banks in parallel to reduce the time. Little complex but will help with time.

[Raghu M]

Great thread. Thank you for posting the review in detail. Also, you illustration diagrams are absolutely good, so don't worry about the quality. They explain everything pretty clearly. I have only one point regarding drivers using AC. Ours is a tropical country and we need to give drivers the comfort they need while driving such huge distances. Just because there are complaints that they are falling asleep after a meal do not justify removing the AC feature away altogether. In fact, I am surprised that there is no cleaner at all. That is not a right thing to do IMO. What if there is a flat tyre? a robbery or some untoward incident? I think in the name of cost cutting, we are taking away some basic rights of the drivers.

[OffRoadFun]

Wow! Very interesting and detail oriented.
Honestly, I was under impression that electric trucks of this size were non-existent in India till now. But things seem to be moving faster than I thought.

All the best!

Originally Posted by Raghuwire

Driving a truck in India: In my opinion, driving a truck is one the toughest jobs in the country. So before cutting in front of a truck, please be mindful that, we are affecting their livelihood! My salute to all the hero truck drivers of the country.

So true, well said! Reminds me there are people who find driving harder than we find in our cities and it's their job, not a commute or some leisure drive over the weekend! Respect!

[ferrarirules]

Super thread. Retrofitting existing trucks with EV tech that is simply wow. Some points which I think will be additional benefits

1. Reduced emissions. All MNCs have CSR responsibility or Emission reduction targets which will be full filled by this
2. Happier work force due to lesser driving stress. I know safety is a concern as driver might fall to sleep. You can think of retrofitting Driver Fatigue monitoring system in your trucks.
3. Lesser components to maintain in the EV trucks as compared to diesel trucks. No need for constant addition of adblue.

The carbon foot print reduced by electrifying a commercial vehicle is huge. There are big strides being made in our country to electrify commercial vehicles. Yesterday I had put a post on how MSRTC has been able to convert its Mumbai - Pune bus services.

Your thread adds credence to the saying that where there is a will, there is a way.

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by Raghuwire

So, to AC or not to AC is the question! In my opinion, driving a truck is one the toughest jobs in the country. They are driving the nation; they drive the economy.

Well done on introducing an EV truck into your fleet. The world is slowly and steadily heading down this path and it is one of many ways to reduce our carbon footprint. The transition won't be easy and investment in this space is usually reluctant as any and every business wants to see what it brings to the table in terms of savings. Easier for a Business with deep pockets versus a smaller outfit.

In our harsh conditions, air conditioning it is a must. Drivers feeling sleepy post lunch is the result of fatigue. They work odd hours, hardly get a proper 8 hour nap, do not eat in time. All this contributes to feeling drowsy behind the wheel. Our Government does not care about their livelihood either. We as employers should. Driving an EV truck should be a lot less taxing for them as there are no fumes and vibrations to deal with. Truck Drivers in the developed world face similar issues. The difference is there are rules and proper working guidelines for these drivers. You are not going to be penalized for pulling over and taking a nap. The other difference is that drivers usually own their own trucks and operate on contract terms. When its your truck and you are responsible for the cargo you need to deliver, the attitude changes.

I would say the next step would be to make a battery swap arrangement. With a truck, this should be a easier to implement. This will reduce down time and should shorten the time from a TCO perspective. With a truck, the longer its standing idle, the less money you make.

[lina]

Originally Posted by Raghuwire

The Journey to our first electric trailer: I was super excited and was already imagining myself driving one of these out during a flag off session! So, I noted down the contact of the manufacturer and setup a meeting. During the meeting my euphoria soon turned to grief when I asked him, how do we charge them, vendor replied we fast charge the batteries at 160KWH! Till then, everything I had read pointed towards the fact that, we need to mix slow charge and fast charge to ensure that battery range does not degrade. Vendor was confident about the product and assured us of a 4 year/2500 charge cycle. The company being start-up, mostly building retrofit trucks out of imported Chinese parts did not instil confidence in me. Even the Tata Nexon EV and Tigor EV in my family, come with a recommendation of slow & fast charging

Fast Charging LFP batteries will hardly affect its life or health. Infact even with Tata cars which have LFP, the reason for slow charging once in a while is so that the BMS can accurately report SOC of the battery. The health is not the issue.

LFP batteries have this issue that their voltage varies very little across the SOC band. This makes it difficult to estimate the SOC. So, the BMS needs to know exactly how much charge is there in each cell and needs good calibration from time to time which generally happens only during AC charging.

Im pretty sure these issues can be overcome with better software and maybe a an occasional AC charge from 95% to 100%

[gypsygenes]

What a fantastic, information loaded post Raghuwire. Thank you for taking the time and effort in sharing your expeirence. I have a small farm and own two farm tractors - a 65 HP with frontloader and backhoe for earthworks and a 57 HP for doing farm operations and haulage. I have thought of experimenting with EV tractors but the thought of EV- enabling infra and tech support especially in rural areas has been daunting. Your post inspires me to put in the hard miles.
Thank you!

[ike]

Great initiative, I see most industries moving away from conventional fuels wherever the opportunity exists.

Originally Posted by Raghuwire

AC vs safety: One of the issues faced when trucks are air conditioned is that drivers after a full meal, are falling asleep in a quieter, air conditioned & comfortable cabins, leading to accidents. With logistics becoming leaner, most of our trucks are single driver driven, without cleaners also. No one to even keep you company and wake you up or make you aware of the dangers of the sudden comfort. So, to AC or not to AC is the question! In my opinion training, constant tracking, and driver monitoring is the solution.

Regarding driver fatigue, my employer has set up AI cameras that monitor driver performance(like in high end cars these days) and intervenes in case the driver appears to be fatigued. While I'm not aware of the technical details, with technology becoming cheaper hopefully MoRTH will consider having something similar in all trucks in future. Airconditioning is a necessity rather than luxury these days with the temperatures soaring across the globe, for the drivers out on the highways AC will definitely improve their efficiency and endurance.

[gischethans]

Originally Posted by Raghuwire

Remember the 300+ trucks which Adani purchased, they are not registered with RTO, as they work only inside the port.

This is interesting and must be saving them a ton in terms of registration and taxes. Can't this be done elsewhere, like say at airports? The shuttles there usually have yellow plates.

[gopa99]

Great writing! I was thinking if we could tame the red killers of Kerala ( loosely a term for all the rashly driven private buses in kochi city) if they could get electric and get ‘g’ limiters and speed limiters like you mentioned @40 kmph. Hurray, and that’s a lot of lives saved as well. While bringing in an electric revolution the government could also see how they can use the e-axle technology to improve safety on our city roads as well.

[McLaren Rulez]

Originally Posted by Raghuwire

AC vs safety: One of the issues faced when trucks are air conditioned is that drivers after a full meal, are falling asleep in a quieter, air conditioned & comfortable cabins, leading to accidents.

The same argument should hold for car drivers, many of whom drive for long hours, eat full meals and fall asleep at the wheel. Truck drivers being more comfortable is likely to make them less tired over a long day and hence increase safety.

They're human beings who deserve as comfortable a working environment as possible, just like everyone else.