Lighting e-trucks for last-mile delivery fleets

Lightning eMotors will supply 40 zero-emission delivery trucks for a last-mile delivery fleet in New York City.

Lightning eMotors, a provider of purpose-built commercial electric vehicles for fleets, announced that Fluid Truck has ordered 40 additional zero-emission delivery trucks for its New York City fleet. The vehicles will be utilized by XPO Logistics and NAL Group in support of Ikea Retail U.S. last-mile delivery efforts.

Ten electric delivery box trucks from Lightning eMotors have already been put into service within the Fluid Truck network system to serve Manhattan. An additional 30 vehicles from Colorado-based Lightning eMotors will be deployed over the next few months.

The new all-electric vehicles are being deployed by third-party logistics partners NAL Group and XPO Logistics. The companies are renting the vehicles via the Fluid Truck rental platform, which allows businesses to easily rent and pickup vehicles from nearby locations 24/7, 365 days a year.

“XPO Logistics, NAL Group and Fluid Truck are truly innovating by not only making deliveries more sustainable by using zero-emission trucks, but also by significantly reducing the cost of deliveries,” said Tim Reeser, CEO of Lightning eMotors. “The operational savings of these trucks are substantial over traditional vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, which enables XPO and NAL to offer more value to customers. We’re delighted to be able to provide reliable, sustainable transportation and help these companies save money at the same time.”

The electric delivery trucks will operate out of a new 975,000 sq. ft. distribution center on Staten Island. The center is managed by CEVA Logistics, a global-logistics firm.

The Lightning Electric Class 4 commercial box trucks will deliver products to all five boroughs of New York City. They incorporate 129 kWh of battery capacity, providing a range of 120 miles and can be charged in just under two hours by an 80 kW onboard dc fast charger, the company said.

Fluid Truck is the process of incorporating 600 Lightning Electric vehicles onto their platform, rolling out the vehicles to several cities throughout the United States. Users can book vehicles through the Fluid Truck website or their mobile application.

“The Lightning-Fluid partnership provides a highly flexible arrangement for our customer operators and drivers,” said James Eberhard, founder and CEO of Fluid Truck. “This means that the vehicles can be used by other fleets when they are not needed by XPO Logistics or NAL Group. Electric vehicles already have a high ROI, and this makes that even higher because the utilization rates of these vehicles will be maximized.”

These last-mile delivery vehicles feature Lightning Analytics, a cloud-based telematics system that provides predictive maintenance, route scoring, range analysis, driver behavior, and geofencing for maximum range and efficiency.

“Lightning provides customers with the option to use a range of traditional OEM chassis or custom chassis,” said Kash Sethi, chief revenue officer of Lightning eMotors. “We are using a Ford chassis for these particular trucks, which provides the customer with a quality, safety-certified chassis that supports over 1000 upfit options for boxes, lifts, shelving, flooring and interior systems, and provides the customer with the peace of mind knowing they have a well-established worldwide network for support, service and spare parts.”