Here you go...
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Two Truck Drivers Create a Revolutionary Electric Truck
https://medium.com/@rcsalsbury2404/two-truck-drivers-create-a-revolutionary-electric-truck-02d282250aa4
Russell Salsbury
A tiny company can compete with billion-dollar corporations. All that’s
needed is a different way of thinking.
picture: [Edison Motors Topsy]
Edison Motors prototype named Topsy, Image courtesy of Edison Motors,
https://www.edisonmotors.ca/
Two logging truck drivers, Chase Barber and Eric Little, sit in a cafe
for morning breakfast. As do truck drivers everywhere, they complain
about their trucks. They swear they could build a better truck
themselves.
After graduating from college, they returned to their hometown of
Merritt, BC, and started a company to haul logs from the mountains to
the sawmills down below in Merrit. Being frugal or impecunious as new
grads are by necessity, their first truck was a 1969 Kenworth 5 axle
logging truck, they called Old Blue. Not only was it cheap, it could be
fixed by any truck mechanic.
As the business grew, more trucks were added. They experienced
frustration with the serviceability of newer trucks and started
rebuilding older trucks instead. The business grew and expanded to
hauling and installing power generation systems. In 2019, they started
designing and installing off-grid solar hybrid power systems. After
their first successful project in northern BC, Eric and Chace started to
design a diesel-electric semi truck using the same principles of a
high-voltage off-grid solar project.
Their hypothetical truck had to meet some very specific requirements. A
truck hauling 140,000 pounds of logs had to be very rugged. It needed to
be repairable by the driver or a local mechanic with parts from a local
truck supply store. It was completely unacceptable to have a tuck
stranded on the side of a mountain road waiting for weeks for a factory
representative to stop by. Worse still, a truck that had to be sent to a
Tesla repair facility with weeks of delay. Right to repair was tattooed
on their souls.
One time the air compressor for the brakes failed. They replaced it with
a cheap compressor from a hardware store and plugged it into the 115V
socket, and they were on their way.
And it needed to be environmentally friendly.
Their solution was diesel-electric, which was common in mining and
offroad transportation. They were inspired by a 50-year-old diesel
electric log loader still in daily use at one of the yards in Merritt.
The loader is awesome. It can take a whole trailer of logs in one bite
and move them. You can see it on the Edison site.
Diesel-electric locomotives were invented in 1914. The first
commercially successful locomotive was introduced in 1925 by GE. That’s
a century of proven design.
The diesel generator is smaller and lighter than the diesel engine it
replaces. It is available at local supply houses because of its use as
an emergency backup generator.
Chance Barber relates Edison’s early history.
Edison Motors was founded by Chace Barber and Eric Little who entered
their business partnership in 2016 after graduating university and
starting a trucking company with a 1969 Kenworth 5 axle Logging Truck
(Old Blue). They began hauling logs in Merritt, BC. and moved to hauling
mining equipment into the Yukon and then expanded to moving drilling
rigs in Alberta before returning back to BC logging.
The business grew, more trucks were added and due to the frustration in
serviceability of newer trucks the partners started rebuilding older
trucks instead. The business grew and expanded to hauling and installing
power generation systems. In 2019 the guys started designing and
installing off-grid solar hybrid power systems. After their first
successful project in northern BC, Eric and Chace started to design a
diesel-electric semi truck using the same principles of a high voltage
off-grid solar project.
After reserving a Tesla semi in 2017 and not receiving the truck for 4
years, in 2021, they decided build their own electric truck. It would be
a more robust truck, tailored to logging and heavy vocational industries
their trucking company served.
Chance said, “Our trucks are the result of a trucking company who
remanufactured classic logging trucks with their engineering expertise
with off-grid hybrid power systems. It is the aim of the Edison Team to
build a reliable, easy to service truck with the efficiency & power of
an electric vehicle.”
Chance describes the first prototype:
Carl is the name we gave to our prototype truck.
He’s a 1962 Kenworth LW 924 made in Vancouver, BC.
Carl was originally purchased in Merritt, BC, in 1962, where it worked
for 40 years as a logging truck. The name Carl is in honour of the
father of one of our investors who was a truck driver that unfortunately
passed away as we were starting the build. Carl was a truck driver his
whole life and believed in our idea, we thought it was only right to
name our first truck after him.
It then sat for 15 years in a field rusting away before we decided to
restore the truck and use it for our prototype diesel-electric hybrid.
We tore it right down, added new frame rails, air ride suspension, and a
CAT 3306 Generator
We reinstalled 1 fuel tank for the diesel generator and added two large
battery banks to each side of the frame rails like saddle tanks.
For the electric drive motor we used a Tesla model S motor. We welded up
the differential and spider gears on a and adapted a drive shaft to it.
From that it goes into a 4 speed Spicer Aux transmission to reduce the
gearing, and into a set of 4.33 rear ends.
The Generator charges the batteries in about 20 minutes as the truck is
driving and the truck can drive for 2–3 hours off the batteries alone.
Starting out on a full charge, this truck can drive 1000 km on 120L of
fuel which works out to 12L/100km (21mpg), which is absolutely
incredible for a long nose Kenworth from the 1960’s. Before as a
mechanical truck it got 40L/100km (6 MPG) resulting in a 70% increase in
fuel mileage on a bobtail.
Due to the small tesla motor output shaft we have not tested it with a
load as of yet in winter 2022 since when we tried to pull heavy we
actually snapped the drive shaft output from the motor side. However
this is not a concern for us at this point as the production trucks all
use e-axles with planetaries rated for pulling semi truck loads. We are
building a stronger output shaft now for spring testing but it’s not our
main goal as we were successful in the parts that were important to us.
Carl accomplished our main goals of: connecting the generator to the
batteries via a rectifier, it allowed us to make sure we could wire in
controls for the electric motor, and it allowed us to get real world
testing data of the truck on the move and how the systems work. It let
us be incredibly confident in building the first production truck.
Topsy
picture: [Original Topsy]
Original version of Topsy, courtesy of Edison Motors
The second prototype was named Topsy after the elephant that Thomas
Edison electrocuted to prove the dangers of Tesla’s AC power. I believe
the image above is the actual prototype Topsy.
picture: [Topsy production prototype]
The Topsy production prototype as now shown on Edison, image courtsy of
Edison
There are two distinct differences between the two Topsy prototypes. The
cab has been completely redesigned for visibility and driver comfort.
And the tractor now has 10 wheels instead of 14.
video: [historic heavy haul]
https://youtu.be/KGN7rjZGjMQ
It’s a long video, but fun to watch because the first load was a weird
buggy consisting of a Chevy pickup mounted on top of a Sherman tank. It
seems possible that the tank still works. I once had a neighbor who
collected tanks and employed a team of mechanics to restore them and
keep them in working order. That was unusual. Canadians are downright
strange.
The Unveiling video answers the question, Why is a trucker-designed
truck better than one designed in a design studio?
video: [it's built like this]
https://youtu.be/an6e2Lh9u58
The cab looks odd, more like those half-width cabs in trucks that haul
steel beams, long pipes, and the like. But from the inside, the driver
has incredible visibility. The left side isn’t favored over the right.
That’s important on narrow mountain roads or tight spaces. Or on
snowplows. The passenger seat is below and behind the driver, again to
improve visibility.
Unveiling makes very clear Edison’s commitment to the right to repair.
As I said, the air compressor can be replaced at a hardware store. But
the same is true of the running lights. The turn signal is a design from
the 1960s. Even the diesel generator can be replaced in a far-off-road
oil field.
Is it green?
Diesel-electric is more efficient because the engines run at a constant
rpm at peak efficiency on the power curve. Instantaneous power needs are
buffered by the battery. Pure diesel often has to deviate from the
optimal.
Edison trucks are designed to go up into the mountains empty on
electricity and refill the batteries with regenerative braking on the
way back down. It is quite possible to drive the whole way without using
diesel at all.
Pure electric is more efficient for medium-haul interstates. In those
cases, Tesla and the other electrics will win out.
Edison trucks are heavier and less aerodynamic. Aerodynamics doesn’t
matter when you are hauling 160,000 pounds of logs or plowing roads
Thoughts
I find it inspiring that a few guys can create an innovative heavy truck
by marrying proven low-tech with advanced energy management. Competing
eTrucks have a motor per wheel or axle. Edison has a single motor with
multiple driveshafts, like existing diesel trucks. Simpler, proven, and
cheaper. The only change they had to make was to strengthen the
universal joints because one snapped from the torque generated from
getting 160,000 pounds moving.
Far more importantly, they have shown that a startup can compete with
multi-billion dollar corporations by being innovative instead of
copycat. Edison is offering conversion kits to convert pickups to
diesel-electric. Manufacturing their own pickups would be massively
expensive because of all the federal and state requirements. A kit
bypasses all that, except meeting the emission requirements for
registration.
I live in central coast California cow country. I bet there is a market
for a couple of mechanics and a garage to get into the conversion
process with kits from Edison.
Be inspired.
© Copyright Russell Salsbury, 2025
<< Annoyed by leaf blowers ? https://quietcleanseattle.org/ >>
------ Original Message ------
From: "Rod Hower" <[email protected]>
To: "Electric Vehicle Discussion List" <[email protected]>
Cc: "Peri Hartman" <[email protected]>
Sent: 20-Jul-25 18:30:06
Subject: Re: [EVDL] plug-in hybrid logging truck
Most of the medium articles you have to pay for, there are a few you
can read. This one gives the first couple of paragraphs and then you
have to pay, so please post the text of this article, sounds
interesting!
On Sunday, July 20, 2025 at 10:36:39 AM EDT, Peri Hartman via EV
<[email protected]> wrote:
This team used off-the-shelf parts to convert logging trucks to a
hybrid
generator with battry and electric motor. They claim 2-3 hours of run
time on a charge and an overall fuel efficiency 70% better than
original. They don't say whether it's possible to plug in to charge
but,
still, I think this is a clever improvement versus waiting for the big
manufacturers to produce something useful.
Sorry, this doesn't completely meet the evdl requirements.
Two Truck Drivers Create a Revolutionary Electric Truck
https://medium.com/@rcsalsbury2404/two-truck-drivers-create-a-revolutionary-electric-truck-02d282250aa4
I don't know if you can access this link. If not, let me know and I can
paste the story.
Peri
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