The TransPower’s Advanced Battery-Electric Port Vehicles project was funded by the CEC to demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing battery-electric power to achieve routine operations of Class 8 yard tractors and drayage trucks in port applications and to retrofit an electric reach stacker with a new, experimental battery technology designed to increase operating range. Yard tractors and drayage trucks, each of which can haul loads of up to 59,000 kilograms, are commonly used at warehouses, distribution centers, ports, rail yards, and other commercial and industrial locations, are high consumers of petroleum and emit high levels of pollution. Because these sites are usually embedded within large populations or within disadvantaged communities, the tractors and trucks have a disproportionately negative effect on the health and welfare of thousands of individuals.
TransPower’s Advanced Battery-Electric Port Vehicles battery-electric power is an electric drive system that Transportation Power, Inc. began developing in 2011. The Advanced Battery-Electric Port Vehicles project enabled Transportation Power, Inc. to make numerous improvements to its electric propulsion systems and to adapt them to yard tractors and to Class 8 drayage trucks. Transportation Power, Inc. converted and demonstrated two Kalmar battery-electric T2E yard tractors and two Navistar International ProStar battery-electric drayage trucks during the Advanced Battery-Electric Port Vehicles project.
