Plug-in-Hybrid Electric Armored Trucks to Hit California’s Roads
Efficient Drivetrains Inc. delivered a Class 6 plug-in-hybrid electric armored truck to Sectran Security, with five more planned, the company said.
The International brand truck features EDI’s PowerDrive 6000 plug-in electric drivetrain, and is being converted to run on electricity and renewable natural gas instead of diesel engines by North American Repower, Milpitas, Calif.-based EDI said. International is a brand of Navistar Inc.
Sectran will deploy them as armored vehicles for its cash-in-transit service along highly congested routes in California, EDI said.
At each stop, engines are kept idling for security purposes, but now risk violating California’s strict diesel-idling regulations, which prohibit idling the engine for more than five minutes, the company said. With the converted trucks, engine idling is eliminated entirely by operating in the all-electric mode during stop-and-go operations, and in the hybrid mode using RNG during highway operations.
With the full fleet of six trucks, Sectran will cut its annual diesel consumption by 31,000 gallons and related emissions by up to 99.9%, EDI said.
EDI has tested its PowerDrive 6000 for more than 1.5 million miles in a commercial fleet setting of city buses, it said, and deployed it with other truck makers, including Freightliner and Peterbilt Motors Co., which are separate brands of Daimler Trucks North America and Paccar Inc., respectively.
The project includes funding from the California Energy Commission, which approved a $3 million grant from its Energy Research and Development Division, EDI said.
