There were many companies at the latest ACT Expo presenting variations on the theme of what one might call “Electric-Fleet-as-a-service” – that is to say, a contractual relationship where the operator has the upfront costs and hassles of switching to an electric fleet taken out of its hands by a “turnkey” service provider. One such company I spoke with was Revolv, whose CEO, Scott Davidson, feels that terms such as “X-as-a-service” and “turnkey” have been diluted through overuse. “Our product is performance,” he said.

There are some ideas that seem so obvious upon their introduction that one wonders why somebody did not think of it earlier. A hands-free charger that automatically plugs into an electric vehicle and unplugs from it when finished surely qualifies as a not-so-obvious obvious idea. It makes perfect sense – given the potential dangers of handling high-voltage equipment, and also given the prospect of driverless vehicles – to develop chargers that do not require a human to operate them. After speaking to Erin Galiger – who is director of the North American market for Dutch tech firm Rocsys – at the latest ACT Expo, I learned that hands-free chargers have several more applications than I had initially expected.

The company added Canadian bus manufacturer Letenda to its client list. Forsee announced that its Zen Plus battery systems will be integrated into Letenda’s 9-metre Electrip zero-emission buses in Q4 2024. According to Forsee, use of NMC lithium-ion cells allows the battery pack to offer up to 5,000 charging cycles, increasing its TCO.

According to Shawn Furman, Sales Manager for Optimal EV’s transit business, who spoke to T&BB at the latest ACT Expo, the company has preferred to keep a low profile over the last couple of years, especially given the bad press which EVs are receiving. While competitors such as Lightning eMotors have gone under, Optimal EV has been quietly working away on its main offerings, an electric chassis-cab and a battery electric low floor shuttle bus.

Several of the vehicles were shown in order to promote the work that Poindexter’s brands have done to design bodies which are better suited to the characteristics and demands of the electric driveline: one of these was ‘Project Blackjack’, a proof-of-concept vehicle with a lightweight and aerodynamic Morgan truck body.

At its stand, Thermo King present its ‘e200’, ‘e300’, and ‘e1000’ transport refrigeration units and the ‘Precedent S-750i’, a hybrid TRU.

Located in Byhalia, a town located in Marshall County (just on the Mississippi-Tennessee border near Memphis), the five-hundred-acre site will accommodate a two-million-square-foot plant by 2027.

The company used the 2024 ACT Expo to announce the appointment of Nikolas Runge as the new Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Runge will be responsible for scaling the engineering and product development teams to bring further innovation to its product range. The company rolled out 4,300 chargers in 2023 and the Board plans to build on this success.

Jim Castelaz, who founded the company back in 2009 and is now Chief Technology & Revenue Officer, described Motiv to T&BB as “Silicon Valley meets Motor City”.

Through a special-purpose entity, “Zevx Liquidation LLC”, Resolution is running two sales processes in parallel: an auction of ZEVx equipment at its location in Gilbert, Arizona; and a separate sale of the company’s intellectual property. Attached to this article is a sale memorandum, providing details of the intellectual property and assets on offer.

According to Global Vice President  Eric Guter, each high-capacity station will be able to refuel 200 heavy-duty trucks or 2000 cars per day. This is a strategic move by the company (the largest supplier of hydrogen in the world) which already operates six hydrogen refuelling stations in Southern California. California was chosen due to the large green State subsidies available.

Approximately 360,000 square feet of the existing plant, which measures 1.42m square feet, will be given over to the ‘Accelera’ zero emission brand.