TEST DRIVE
TIME FOR
PLAN E
T&FME is in France to test drive an electric D-Wide as Renault launches its ambitious E-Tech plan
T
he first thing that hits when you’re behind the wheel of the all-new electric D Wide E-Tech is how quiet the cab is. Shifting out of the Normandy plant where the truck and its fellow electric Ts and Cs are produced, the only sound you can hear is the sound of the power steering. Navigating a route through the local town of Blainville-sur-Orne feels unerring as you stop at a traffic light or junction. There’s no judder or tell-tale diesel rumble. Normally waste runs are clunking stop-start affairs, this on the other hand is, dare T&FME suggests, almost relaxing. Small wonder they put us in a spa the night before the plant visit. The ride, in short, is impressive. Clearly a test drive can’t replicate the hustle and bustle of a daily waste operation but sneaking up on traffic in what is normally a
20 APRIL 2022
16t behemoth is a powerful demonstration of how our cities and communities can be far quieter places to be. Assuming that the infrastructure can be in place to support them. And it was this point that was returned to over and over again during the visit: if electric trucks are to be adopted quickly then we need to be able to support them with the infrastructure to go with it. This is something Renault Trucks, which boasts the largest fleet of electric trucks on the road in Europe, is keen to address. And partly why it has dropped the ZE moniker in favour of E-Tech. Indeed, the French manufacturer no longer wants to provide you with merely a truck but everything you need to keep it on the road too. Last month, Renault Trucks unveiled the E-Tech brand and its ambitions in the field of e-mobility with an offer geared towards providing, what it calls, 360° support
540 The T and C E-Tech will have two to six lithiumion batteries with a capacity of 180 to 540 kWh
for its customers. It wants 50% of its sales to be electric by 2030 and, by 2040, 100% of the vehicles sold will be carbon neutral. To put that in context, in 2021, 249 electric trucks were delivered and 613 were ordered. The electric trucks produced in Normandy represent a tenth of the plant’s 2,000-plus units per year. It is therefore unlikely to be a coincidence that it wants to see 2,000 electric trucks produced instead. Slotting into the current production line, chassis are fitted with the electric drivelines, cooling systems and, of course, batteries, instead of traditional engines, transmissions and fuel tanks. Seeing it in action, it is easy to see how production could be scaled up to add more electric trucks instead of fossil-fuel equivalents. Although T&FME is told that there is also a need for the auto-cluster and supply chain involved to also be scaled up meconstructionnews.com
