The New Frontier for Medium-Duty EV Innovation

While the popularity of OEM passenger electric vehicles (EV) has skyrocketed in recent years, medium- and heavy-duty commercial electric vehicle (CEV) deployments are limited to pilots and small demonstration fleets. The lag in adoption appears surprising given that these deployments are ideal applications for electric vehicles, with repeatable routes and predictable overnight charging while parked in depots.

The real adoption barrier lies in the high cost and low reliability of these vehicles due to the approach that many CEV original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have taken, which involves labor-intense, low volume manufacturing processes, and a lack of investment in product validation.