Dow Jones Newswires | U.S. truck maker Navistar International Corp. said Thursday it will deliver its first electric truck to FedEx Corp. by the end of the year, thanks, in part, to stimulus funding provided last year by the government.
Navistar’s eStar model is the first medium-duty commercial vehicle to receive the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s clean-fuel fleet vehicle certification and the California Air Resources Board’s certification as a zero-emission vehicle, the company said.
U.S. lithium-ion battery maker A123 Systems is providing the batteries
for the eStar trucks. The eStar can travel 100 miles on a single
electric charge, and charging the battery takes about six to eight
hours, Navistar said.
“We have brought the eStar to market to meet the needs of responsible
customers who strive to have a positive impact on the environment
through energy efficiency,” Shane Terblanche, Navistar’s general manager
for electric vehicles, said in a statement.
FedEx said it would test the vehicle as part of its Los Angeles fleet.
Last August, President Barack Obama visited Navistar’s Indiana factory
to announce the company had been awarded a $39.2 million federal
stimulus grant to build electric trucks.
The government set aside about $5 billion in grants for electric vehicle
technologies to stimulate job growth, support the domestic vehicle
industry and “develop cost effective solutions to reduce our dependence
on oil,” said Matt Rogers, a senior advisor to Energy Secretary Steven
Chu.
A123 was awarded a nearly $250 million stimulus grant to improve battery
manufacturing at two Michigan factories.
General Motors Corp. received grants totaling about $240 million, Ford
Motor Co. received $93 million and Chrysler LLC received $70 million to
support manufacturing of electric vehicles, according to the DOE.
Navistar estimates that each eStar truck can reduce greenhouse-gas
emissions by up to 10 tons of carbon dioxide a year.
