Electric vehicles are gaining momentum in the industry. Fleets have found them to be more economical, and they contribute to ESG goals. Yet, charging remains a deterrent for other fleets that wish to electrify. And it remains a headache for early adopters.
“The fleet managers have never had anything other than diesel or gas,” Tyler Phillipi, CEO of OptiGrid, a modular fleet charging solution, told FleetOwner. “The site developers have never had to fight for power before. … No one really knows what they're doing, so it’s not like this problem is going away.
However, as time progresses, technology improves. Here are two innovations within the industry that are increasing charging capacity and decreasing charge time.
See also: Where alt-fuel infrastructure stands today: EV charging infrastructure
Scalable on-site charging in a week
Charging has been the biggest hurdle for fleets looking to electrify. Even fleets that successfully integrated electric vehicles into their operations years ago still rely on “temporary” charging to keep their vehicles juiced up.
There are multiple challenges associated with building charging infrastructure; however, the challenge that often takes the most time to overcome is with the utility providers. Burying cable in the ground, building concrete pads for new transformers, suffering through the lead time to get a new transformer—all these factors add to the time it takes to build charging infrastructure at a fleet depot.
OptiGrid has worked to eliminate the headache and drastically cut the time it takes to enable on-site charging. OptiGrid supplies fleets and businesses with a charging solution that is nearly plug and play. The solution includes a battery and charging cables in a 7-ft. tall unit with only a 3x3-ft. footprint.
The unit is wired to the existing power cables, slowly draws and stores power in the battery pack, and then releases that power to charge an electric vehicle via DC fast charging. Phillipi called the slow power draw and quick charge release concept “garden hose in, fire hose out.”
The concept is simple. “We drop basically a battery and all the electronics needed in a box that's pre-certified that will work in many kinds of situations,” Phillipi explained.
These units are designed to work in any terrain, any weather—you name it. They’re also designed as a modular solution—each unit is the exact same—which speeds up lead time and deployment.
“We're going from a bespoke solution ... that involves tearing up the ground and running lots of cables and stuff to something that is modular that we can drop,” Phillipi said. “So, that temporary solution where they're driving in a diesel generator or they're bringing in a flatbed with the batteries on it—this is more permanent. But it really only takes eight bolts in the ground.”
The simplicity of the unit brings charging infrastructure development down from years to days. The quickest installation Phillipi and the OptiGrid team has seen so far is five business days. A contract was “signed on Friday, and [OptiGrid] was installed by the next Friday,” Phillipi said.
Each unit can accommodate up to four charging cables to power four vehicles at once. If a fleet needs more chargers or has larger vehicles that require more power to charge, they simply need to add another unit to the site.
OptiGrid has been around for some time, but it had a different name in the beginning: FreeWire Technologies. As a startup, the company “struggled to manufacture its product affordably and consistently, leading to downtime and rising support costs that ultimately outpaced the company’s ability to sustain operations,” according to a press release. With a belief in the concept, electric terminal truck manufacturer Orange EV decided to invest in the company and create OptiGrid.
The support from Orange EV extends to its supply chain and customer network, which “provides the U.S. manufacturing foundation and market access needed to bring OptiGrid’s reengineered charging platform to fleets at scale,” a release stated.
While OptiGrid’s initial focus is to aid current Orange EV customers with their charging needs, the company anticipates commercial expansion later this year.
See also: What it takes to build charging infrastructure, according to a utility provider
Two ports, one truck
Terawatt is a charging depot developer with commercial-sized charging stations in Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico. The company has experienced success in building its charging depots, and it’s now completing charging demonstrations with electric trucks on the side.
Terawatt recently completed demonstrations of dual-port charging with Windrose’s Class 8 electric long-haul truck. Terawatt was able to deliver “over 650 kW using two 350kW chargers” to the trucks and deemed the demonstration successful, according to a release.
The Windrose truck charged to a 240-mile range in about 40 minutes
In addition to the demonstration, Terawatt is working with Windrose to connect vehicle systems with Terawatt's energy management platforms. The goal is to deliver even more value to fleet customers with improved uptime, “more intelligent charging,” and improved total cost of ownership, the release said.
If the demonstrations continue to prove successful, dual-port charging could be the next widely adopted innovation on long-haul electric trucks.
