Compared to light-duty lorries-- smaller sized pickup, SUVs, and automobile-- there's a relative absence of new medium-duty electric trucks for the commercial market. That's not to say there are no medium-duty EVs out there-- several companies have been making electrical powertrains for usage in industrial vehicles like delivery vans and school buses. Motiv is one such business, a 14-year veteran of the field. Today it revealed a brand-new medium-duty EV developed from the ground up, called the Argo.
"The market is requiring a proven service that allows companies to with confidence scale their EV lorry fleets, which is where Motiv steps in: Argo integrates our proven powertrain innovation with a brand-new driver-centric taxi to provide an unrivaled EV experience," stated Tim Krauskopf, CEO of Motiv Power Systems.
"In California, for example, the Advanced Clean Fleet Rule is set to enter into impact on January 1, 2024, and the state needs roughly 20,000 brand-new no emission medium-duty EVs on the road by the end of 2024," he stated. "The Argo Series will assist fulfill the growing demand of many companies waiting on an EV option efficient in supporting a vast array of applications."
The taxi style is more contemporary than we've seen from other medium-duty EVs. Composites are used in preference to sheet metal, in part to balance out the weight of the battery pack. However Motiv says that the taxi surpasses others in terms of heating and cooling, which suggests using less of the truck's energy for those functions. It says the driving position has been developed to decrease tiredness however optimize visibility.
The Argo will use Motiv's new powertrain, which the company announced previously this year. The six-phase motors were developed together with Japan's Nidec. Although the starting point was an 800 V Nidec motor, it now runs at 350 V.
"You can type of do either, however it's clearly more cost-effective if you can utilize the lower voltage system," discussed Jim Castelaz, Motiv's creator and CTO. "We said OK, we'll take that motor, wind it a little bit differently. We'll establish the control algorithm that allows us to get that as much torque as a Detroit Diesel DD15 diesel motor out of this motor at 350 volts," Castelaz told me. (For context, that's between 1,550 and 1,850 lb-ft/2,102-- 2,508 Nm, which is rather a lot, even for an electrical motor.)
Motiv has likewise combined parts for the brand-new powertrain, replacing bought-in modules like DC-DC converters or junction boxes with an integrated power electronic devices and distribution package it constructs internal.
"What that implies is we're changing wires with circuit boards, so much higher dependability, lower expenses," Castelaz stated. "I was attempting to look yesterday through our logs, and I don't believe we've ever had a circuit board stop working on a car in the field in the manner in which a wire harness would stop working. So it's much better dependability, you lower cost-- it simply winds up being a much better service."
Motiv has actually likewise relocated to LFP battery cells (lithium iron-phosphate), versus NMC (lithium nickel-manganese-cobalt) as utilized in its earlier powertrains. "I think our NMC loads that we use today from BMW-- excellent pack, works actually well-- it's about 33 percent by volume active cell material if you open up the pack. Our brand-new LFP packs are about 78 percent active cell material by volume," Castelaz told me.
Motiv states that Argos need to be on the road by late next year.