Chace Barber, the founder behind Canada-headquartered Edison Motors, has been dubbed by my colleague Alex Lockie the "millennial TikTok-er out to revolutionize log hauling in a '62 Kenworth." Barber named that old truck "Carl," and he'd retrofit it as a diesel-electric proof of concept that seemed to me to be aimed at fitting a crucial piece of the electric-truck puzzle for over-the-road haulers -- on-board power-generation capability, absent from most battery electric trucks available today.
Yet as Barber elaborated in that story and, later, in our Overdrive Radio episode excerpting some of Voice of Go(r)d podcaster, writer and longtime trucker Gord Magill's talk with Barber about his efforts, Barber wasn't planning to target OTR operations with his version of a battery electric truck, backed up by a Caterpillar C9 engine for that on-board charging. At that time, Barber had only deployed the design as a retrofit to older-model tractors. Though this locomotive-style design might yield 5%-10% fuel savings OTR, its best return on investment/real cost savings would be seen by vocational operators, where it might operate fully electric on jobsites, in high-idle city applications ... Or: Log hauling in mountainous regions, where regenerative braking on downgrades would delivery excess charge back to the batteries.
Now, Edison Motors is out with is its first newly built truck, and they're calling it the Edison L Series, to be available in two-drive-axle/500 kW (as in kilowatt, or 670 hp) and three-drive-axle/750 kW (1,005 hp) variants, with full specs listed for each model on the company website. Their prototype for it -- "Topsy" they call this one -- Barber and company hauled from headquarters in British Columbia recently to a truck and equipment show near Vineland, Ontario, where Magill got a close-up look at the rig.
Topsy sports a dozer-style cab with a center driver's seat and fold-over passenger seat that doubles as a cup holder.Edison Motors
Behind the Edison Motors prototype above on the trailer is a creation of the host of the fund-raiser car and truck show where Magill saw Topsy in person. That host, Deboss Garage, fashioned that unique unit as "The Shermanator," and Magill aptly calls it a "mutant tank-pickup truck."
As for Topsy and the Edison L Series production, Barber and company are moving ahead with a variety of purchasing partners to begin producing these units and continuing to learn from the process. I talked to him this morning and he noted near-term plans to build "five-six trucks and then test them over the next two years," to really "get the kinks worked out in real-world applications. Then we’ll be looking at offering sales to the public."
