Quality Foods plans to electrify its fleet of trucks to help reduce its environmental footprint.
The Vancouver Island-based company recently took a big step towards this goal, partnering with EcoWest Driven, a new Parksville company formed specifically to bring electric semi-trucks to the transportation industry.
Quality Foods and another island-based company, Mosaic Forest Company (which has also partnered with EcoWest) will be the first two companies on Vancouver Island to try Tesla semi-electric transport trucks.
“We’re starting with three with the intention of fully electrifying our fleet,” said Justin Schley, vice president of Quality Foods. “The short term is worth three, then the medium term would be nine or 10 and the rest.”
To support Tesla trucks, EcoWest Driven will establish, later this fall, a charging station that will have 45 commercial chargers and a service garage on its property on Angel Road in Parksville.
The goal of switching to electric trucks, Schley explained, is not to save money, but rather to make Quality Foods an environmentally responsible company.
“Operationally it would be similar,” Schley said. “The benefit is really the environmental benefit without costing you more. So it’s really a win-win on both sides. We travel about a million kilometers a year. So that’s a million kilometers of saved emissions and carbon on the roads.
Schley said the expected downtime on electric trucks would be minimal because the batteries don’t fail and have very few moving parts. The trucks have an advertised range of nearly 1,000 kilometers, which Schley says will allow them to deliver to all of their stores on Vancouver Island free of charge.
“It’s perfect for the island because the trucks go out, they don’t travel more than 500 kilometers a day and then they come home and charge overnight and then it all starts again the next day,” he said. declared. “We will be able to deliver faster and deliver similar trips and the charging center would be in Parksville. It will work so perfectly here.
Schley said there was no timeline for the availability of electric trucks, but added “it will happen in the near future. It’s sooner rather than later.
Nanaimo-based Mosaic Forest Company will also be the first to test electric logging trucks. Its objective is to play an important role in the fight against climate change and the achievement of carbon neutrality by 2035.
“The electrification of our log haulage fleet is an important step in this direction,” said Jeff Zweig, President and CEO of Mosaic Forest Management. “British Columbia is a global center of excellence in forestry and we are proud to be working with our local partner, EcoWest Driven, on this important project.
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