The New South Wales Rural Fire Service is putting the new, 600 km Volvo FM Electric semi truck through its paces as they work to decarbonize their emergency vehicle fleet and keep Australia safe from the devastating effects of wildfires.

The Volvo FM Electric is on loan to the NSW RFS for an extended test drive as part of a broader effort to understand how low- and zero-emissions vehicles can be integrated into the agency’s emergency services fleets in the future — and the early results are positive!

In an impressive display of capability, the electric semi truck tackled the 550 kilometer route (340 miles) from the services’ Glendenning NSW logistics headquarters to the border city of Albury with a loaded up RFS water tanker in tow. The truck and trailer arrived just in time to be displayed at the NSW RFS Championships in the suburb of Thurgoona.

The truck was operated by a two-man driving team consisting of Inspector Brendan Doyle, RFS Logistics Manager, and RFS Logistics & Transport Supervisor Peter Duff, who shared driving duties over the route to asses the performance Volvo FM Electric, as well as the heavy vehicle charging experience at each side of the trip.

“This drive presented a great opportunity for us to touch, feel and experience an electric prime mover on public roads,” explained Doyle. “It also allows us to consider where a vehicle like this could fill roles within our logistics fleet in the future.”

Doyle’s partner on the ride concurs. “The driving experience was sensational,” added Duff, “One of the key takeaways for me was that you could take anyone familiar with an existing Volvo truck and they’d be able to drive this without additional training at all.”

The truck averaged 88.7 km/h on the trip, with an energy consumption of 1.24 kWh/km — a figure comparable to the Tesla Semi, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk claims uses 2 kWh of energy per mile. The big Volvo required less than 2 total hours’ charging to complete the 6 hour and 15 minute trip with stops at Goulburn and Tarcutta.

Electrek’s Take

It’s great to see electric semi trucks being used in real-world heavy haul applications, as opposed to the easy-to-criticize potato chip hauling performances we’ve seen other brands put up in the recent past. As Volvo’s deployed electric truck fleet knocks on the door of 100 million miles driven, it’s hard to believe Tesla will be able to catch up.

That said, it’s happened before — who among us though the Model Y would be the best selling car in the world back in 2014? If you did, scroll on down to the comments and let us know.

SOURCE | IMAGES: Volvo Trucks.

Last week’s inauguration of President Trump stole the headlines, but it wasn’t the only big election news — a supermajority of workers at BlueOval SK voted to file a petition last week with the National Labor Relations Board to unite with the UAW.

The supermajority vote by workers at BlueOval SK occurred after attending a town hall-style meeting in Elizabethtown, Kentucky with UAW members from Ultium Cells in Lordstown, Ohio last month. The Lordstown Ultium plant makes battery cells for GM and Honda electric vehicles and, like the BlueOval SK (BOSK) project, is a joint venture between one of the Detroit 3 and a Korean battery brand (in the case of Ultium, GM and LG; in the case of BlueOval SK, Ford and SK On).

The similarities were apparently enough to convince the majority of BOSK workers of the UAW team’s credibility in the traditionally union-opposing south. The move is expected to yield immediate improvements in working conditions at the Kentucky plant.

“We’re forming our union so we can have a say in our safety and our working conditions,” explained Halee Hadfield, a quality operator at BOSK. “The chemicals we’re working with can be extremely dangerous. If something goes wrong, a massive explosion can occur. With our union, we can speak up if we see there’s a problem and make sure we’re keeping ourselves and the whole community safe,”

Those safety concerns were echoed by other BlueOval SK employees who voted to join the UAW. “I have worked both union and nonunion jobs and have seen the power of a union firsthand,” said Andrew McLean, a logistics worker in formation at BOSK. “Right now, we don’t have a say at BOSK. With a union, we’ll be on a level playing field with management. That’s so important when you’re getting a new plant off the ground. The union allows us to give honest feedback without fear of retaliation.”

Ford paid its shareholders more than $3 billion in dividends, on a gross profit of over $24.7 billion for the twelve months ending September 30, 2024. That $3 billion would be enough to pay each of Ford’s 177,000 global employees a one-time bonus of $16,950. According to Ford’s 2024 proxy statement, Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, earned a total compensation of $26,470,033 in 2023 — a nearly $6 million raise from 2022.

The growing unionization movement among nonunion battery workers across the country, and especially in the South, builds off the success of the UAW Stand Up Strike at the Big Three, as well as the victory by Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, who became the first Southern autoworkers employed outside the Big Three to join the UAW last April.

SOURCE | IMAGES: UAW.

Political policies come and go, but total cost of ownership will always trump politics when it comes to managing a commercial fleet. As if to illustrate that point, Canada’s first-ever class 4 medium duty battery electric dump truck was deployed this week!

Daimler-backed medium duty electric truck brand RIZON has been making waves in the commercial truck space thanks to its car-like driving dynamics, high-performance electric motors, low cost of ownership, and a combination of practical range and high-speed charging capability that’s tough to beat in the class 4-6 cabover segment.

That math is something that the engineers at Villamar Construction, a leading custom home builder in Victoria, BC, absolutely understand.

“By investing in the first Rizon EV dump truck in Canada, we at Villamar are turning our ambition into action and setting a new standard for innovation and environmental responsibility in our industry,” says JT Brown, sales manager at Villamar. “Canada’s commitment to a net-zero future by 2032 inspires us to lead the way in both construction and sustainability.”

RIZON offers four model variants in Canada, with GVWRs ranging from 15,995 to 18,850 lbs. and range of up to 257 km (160 miles) for L variants. Canada-spec RIZON truck models are spec ‘ed for superior cold-weather performance with an electric preconditioning function that brings the spacious cabin and batteries up to ideal temperatures with power from the grid as standard equipment.

Electrek’s Take

While there are a lot of people in and around the trucking space who scoff at environmental concerns, but (as I’ve said before) the quest for improved efficiency and cost reduction among commercial fleet managers knows no political ideology. Simply put: If it’s better or cheaper, they’ll buy it. If it’s better and cheaper, they’ll buy two — and battery power is proving to be consistently better, in a broader scope of use cases, than diesel.

Expect to see a whole lot more commercial EVs hitting the road soon as the math gets louder and louder and the case studies pile up.

SOURCE | IMAGES: RIZON.