Snack giant Frito-Lay has launched its first 100% all-electric truck fleet at one of its North Carolina distribution sites.
Frito-Lay’s electric truck fleet is based out of the snack giant’s South Charlotte Product Exchange Center (PEC). It consists of 28 Ford E-Transits and a “wide array of charging solutions” (whatever that means), but we know it’s working with Atom Power on that front and with Duke Energy for power.
Ryan Kennedy, the CEO of Atom Power, said, “It was exactly what they needed for this depot, which was highly reliable charging infrastructure, large-scale energy management, and that’s what we do fundamentally as a company.”
Frito-Lay doesn’t explicitly say, but it looks as though it’s deploying Ford’s two-seater cutaway model with a 68kWh lithium-ion battery and a range of 126 miles.
The PepsiCo subsidiary says that the South Charlotte site is a pilot for future electric depots. It’s set a target of deploying 700 electric vehicles before year-end (they’d better hurry!) and achieving net zero emissions by 2040.
The trucks will drive around 800 miles daily to deliver snacks to retail stores in Gaston, Mecklenburg, and Union Counties in North Carolina, and Lancaster and York Counties in South Carolina.
This electric truck fleet will eliminate 260 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually.
Top comment by Dafty
The wording in the article is a little odd but if 28 trucks are collectively driving 800 miles a day (all together) then that's only 28.57 miles per truck.
So even if a few trucks aren't working on certain days which would bump that per-truck total up a bit, that's still well below the range of the vehicles.
/edit If (somehow) each truck is driving 800 miles in a day that's a lot of fast charging and driver swaps.
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