Summary
We’ve been following Canadian startup Edison Motors for some time now, but their latest offering caught us a bit off guard — their BDE series truck will be offered first without the electric hybrid drive that first piqued our interest. They make a good case for why in the video below, in which the production prototype tows around a junked Nikola semi as a sort of memento mori of what Edison does not want to end up as. Now, make no mistake: Edison Motors is going to be selling the series-hybrid version of these big rigs eventually. That truck will have a Scania diesel rated at 500 kW driving electric motors rated at a combined 1800 kW peak power — that’s 2400 ponies. Along with the diesel generator those ponies will be driven by a big o’l battery, but none of that is in the truck in the video. It’s the same cab, and the same frame, but in order to get some revenue in while jumping regulatory hurdles and working the kinks out of the hybrid drive, they put a conventional Cummins diesel and 16-speed transmission in the “Big D” as the truck is known. The business case makes sense: they don’t want to have their single new product hit a snag, possibly require a recall, and fall into bankruptcy the way the electric truck company Nikola did. The conventional drivetrain also lets them prove their engineering prowess to companies that might like the idea of a Made-in-Canada truck, but be nervous about new technology from a new company. If you want to know more about the whole diesel-electric scheme, we covered that last year. Edison also has plans to offer its hybrid drive technology for smaller trucks in kit form, which is perhaps the most exciting part from a hacker perceptive. Thanks to [Keith Olson] for the tip! i feel like we might be running out of inventors to name vehicle manufacturing companies out of. what’s next, the Braille Fortuna? Imagine Goatse Trucks brand with their unique red steering wheel. Their marketing slogan could be: Stretching the imagination. Great, now I’ve thought about how a Goatse steering wheel might look… Thought about? I am printing it as we speak There’s got to be some academic who could write a critique or analysis about the differences between ages where inventors name the worlds they create after themselves, those who name them after Greek mythology, those who name things PDX-FG-128J17, and those who name everything after the first group of inventors. It seems to follow a cycle. Their name is actually a play on them being inspired by Tesla’s failures with commercial trucking. iirc motto is literally “stealing Tesla’s idea”. tl;dw two dudebros talking about awesome great totally amazing something and how they will this and that. So far they managed to develop a truck with functionality and ergonomics of a KrAZ 255 from the 1970s. You say that like it’s a bad thing. Consider what type of trucking they did before they started the company. Would a Cascadia survive that? No. Even a Granite would split a door shell in half before the first season was over. When the stakes are high functionality and repairability take precedent over form. Them let’s look at the practical engineering and design. A small company like Edison Motors would not have the budget to design and build custom bodywork and interiors like the big players in the industry. Plus plastic and fiberglass wouldn’t survive as long on a severe duty vocational truck. If it can recapture the repairability of the machinery from those bygone days, that might be enough for it to be worthwhile. Maybe I’m just being optimistic; I don’t have to lay down the cash for a semi one way or the other Go talk to their waiting customers and you’ll see they’re building exactly what industry wants. Easy to repair, easy to modify, easy to keep running when downtime can cost millions. I see these startups largely doing “catalogue engineering”. Pick a driveline, engine, battery etc. etc. and get it all together to make a vehicle. It’s a terrible way to do product development- but investors are in a hurry. Too much of a hurry to really build up a company, engineering and manufacturing team. Marketing videos to lure in more investors is the new norm. Fake videos aside, Nikola was doing the same thing. What comes first? The tech, the product or the marketing hype? The majors do an awful lot of catalogue engineering. They just have internal catalogues as well as external ones. Cummins powers an awful lot of vehicles, of various makes. So did Detroit Diesel and Cat. Look at car and start looking for parts made by Bosch. Bet you there’s at least one in the braking and steering systems. Interiors? Loads made by Adient, formerly Johnson Controls. Look at what parts Ferrari steals from other marques. To say that catalogue engineering is a bad or unusual thing exposes ignorance of the way the automotive industry has worked for decades. No one makes all their parts in house. No one does all their own design work. Even Tesla, as “vertically integrated” as they lie about being, needs parts, IP, and expertise from vendors like Panasonic. The modern day is parts bin engineering and industrial lego, covered in sleek, cosmetic body panels. (piqued)