Tevva presents 7.5 tonne truck with range extender
The English company Tevva has presented a 7.5-tonne truck that is supposed to have a range of up to 250 kilometres in electric drive mode and a range of up to 500 kilometres with the FC range extender activated. Production of the Tevva truck is scheduled to start in July 2022.
Tevva boasts in a statement that the new Tevva Truck is the first UK-developed 7.5-tonne electric truck designed for mass production. The model is to be manufactured at a yet-to-be-built factory in London’s Thames Freeport. When the factory there comes on stream, production capacity is expected to be 3,000 trucks per year. However, Tevva is talking about starting production at the London plant in 2023, and it remains unclear where examples of the e-truck will be made from mid-2022.
The range figures are the only concrete values as the manufacturer has not yet provided other data. Regarding the range extender, Tevva says that its patented technology called REX has been converted to hydrogen fuel cells for use in Tevva Truck. In this form, the solution should be available from 2023. Characteristics of the technology are that the fuel cells charge the battery while driving, allowing the Tevva Truck to complete longer work cycles or transport heavier loads. Regarding the charging technology, the British company saysw somewhat nebulously that “future technical developments, which are already being tested, will enable the Tevva Truck to be fully charged in just one hour”.
More tangible is the information that the model offers a payload of two tonnes and can load up to 16 Euro pallets. The total cost of ownership is said to be comparable to that of a diesel vehicle and Tevva says: “From about 3,000 km or with a monthly consumption of 500 litres of diesel, the costs are identical.”
The Tevva Truck is the third vehicle generation from the British company. The company says that seven years of technical development and the knowledge gained from more than 350,000 test kilometres have gone into it. The 7.5-tonne truck is being developed by a team led by Ken Scott, the former technical director of Bentley and Alexander Dennis. It was designed by Dale Grewer, former Jaguar Land Rover chief designer.
“Technology is rapidly transforming the commercial vehicle sector, making it safer, greener and more efficient across the board,” expresses Asher Bennett, founder and CEO of Tevva. The Tevva truck helps fleet managers make the natural transition to electrification: “It is safe in every way and offers great value for money, without compromising on range and reliability”. Tevva does not provide further details on the price. However, according to the company, pre-orders are already possible.
The Tevva Truck is to be the first in a series of electric truck models produced by Tevva in the UK. The manufacturer is planning further BEV and FC-REX models of up to 19.5 tonnes for the British, European and Middle Eastern markets.
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