Fuel flexibility has been increasingly pushed to the forefront of the North American fleet buying cycle, with the more flexible the better.
Wrightspeed, Inc. released this week its third electric driveline product, the Route HD, a heavy-duty powertrain engineered to save fuel in heavy stop-and-go applications, such as waste removal.
The Route HD repower kit can burn diesel, CNG, LNG, or landfill gases, and Wrightspeed says the unit it can save refuse companies more than $35,000 in fuel costs, and $10,000 in maintenance costs, per year.
Route HD is a series hybrid system that uses electric motors to power the wheels, along with a battery, and a turbine range-extending generator that charges the battery as needed. The result is a system that looks like a battery electric vehicle (EV), but has its power station and grid charger onboard. The company says as a result of the self-contained unit is a vehicle that is even greener than EVs.
“Even if Wrightspeed’s Route HD powertrain is never plugged in,” says founder and CEO, Ian Wright, “it’s cleaner than an EV, because the exhaust emissions are lower per kWhr than the average mix of U.S. power stations.”
