Motiv Power Systems Inc., which counts more than 1 million miles of travel on its battery-electric truck and bus chassis, sees a coming breakout for zero-emission commercial vehicles.

“Fleets can see the technology’s ready. And so they want to get in early enough to be influencing the technology and make sure it works in their operations, as opposed to trying to scramble on the back end,” Motiv CEO Matt O’Leary told FreightWaves.

Aramark, a safety, food, facilities, and uniform services provider, operates 31 Motiv-powered vehicles in California. The company announced that it has officially covered more than 275,000 emissions-free miles with the step vans.

Based on Motiv's EPIC F-59 chassis, during the more 275,000 emission-free miles, the vans have saved Aramark more than $100,000 in fuel and maintenance costs, and are currently operating at a 99% uptime.

Motiv showed off the F-59 chassis at The Work Truck Show 2020. The chassis was built to serve urban fleet delivery customers for parcel and delivery vans, school and shuttle buses. It features a shorter wheelbase and Motiv's modular battery system.

With its emissions mandates, tough labor laws, inspection requirements and extensive regulations, California has become both a difficult and expensive environment for trucking.

Nonetheless, the state's role in trucking technology development, both for zero-emission commercial vehicles and autonomous driving, is starting to push industry advances, motor carrier executives and analysts said.

The state’s subsidies for vehicle acquisition and infrastructure are creating the initial volume the industry requires to calculate the real-world cost of operation for electric and hydrogen powered trucks.

When students eventually return to the Triad school district in southwest Illinois, officials are hoping to have a cleaner option to get them there.

The district has arranged for the purchase of three Motiv Type C electric school buses through funding provided by the Volkswagen lawsuit settlement. The buses were initially scheduled for delivery this spring, but with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, that delivery has been delayed.

Though it’s not yet clear when the new buses will arrive, the district is still taking the long view with a tentative 15-year plan to replace 50% of its 27-vehicle fleet from carbon-based fuels to electric, according to Kevin McGraw, transportation manager for the school district.

Some municipalities and private companies recognize eco-friendly planning, programs and products can add value and quality of life to residents and customers. In Stockton, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the Central Valley, sustainable initiatives are being developed in the public and private sectors. Here are a few programs and businesses participating in environmentally sustainable initiatives.

Motiv Power Systems, a sustainable technology company based in San Francisco that makes electric chassis, opened a facility in Stockton in February. Motiv partners with Ford, modifying trucks and shuttle and school buses with software and electronics to make them electric vehicles. Matt O’Leary, Motiv chairman and CEO, says the Stockton facility serves as a predelivery inspection and service center. “Stockton was important because of the hundred vehicles that we have deployed, almost half of those are in the Central Valley. We wanted to have a location that was central to our customers,” he says, and Motiv is providing job opportunities in the region. “We found contacts familiar with the technology we work with. We hired locals right out of Stockton,” O’Leary says. The company plans to play a role in assisting with clean transportation as a solution to improve air quality in Stockton.

Motiv Power Systems, a sustainable technology company based in San Francisco that makes electric chassis, opened a facility in Stockton in February. Motiv partners with Ford, modifying trucks and shuttle and school buses with software and electronics to make them electric vehicles. Matt O’Leary, Motiv chairman and CEO, says the Stockton facility serves as a predelivery inspection and service center.

“Stockton was important because of the hundred vehicles that we have deployed, almost half of those are in the Central Valley. We wanted to have a location that was central to our customers,” he says, and Motiv is providing job opportunities in the region. “We found contacts familiar with the technology we work with. We hired locals right out of Stockton,” O’Leary says. The company plans to play a role in assisting with clean transportation as a solution to improve air quality in Stockton.

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.

U.S. cities can be very loud places. Between the sounds of car horns, sirens, truck traffic, and people yelling, background-noise levels can regularly reach 70 decibels—about as loud as the drone of a vacuum cleaner at close range. That much noise pollution isn’t just annoying; it can heighten stress, disrupt your sleep, and even lead to heart disease. Researchers at the University of Michigan estimate that about one-third of Americans are exposed to harmful noise, and might be at risk of noise-related health problems.

While countries in Europe have enforced stringent national noise standards, Americans have for the most part just made more noise; last year, more than 340,000 noise complaints were filed in New York City alone. But there are signs that people in the U.S. are getting serious about the problem, and new technologies can help. Here’s how the cities and suburbs of the future could become quieter, more peaceful places.

Because electric engines are all but silent, the push for greater fuel efficiency could mean not just cleaner air but quieter streets. If electric cars become more popular (or are mandated by the government), “the whole soundscape of our cities would change rapidly,” Holger Schulze, a musicology professor and the principal investigator at the Sound Studies Lab at the University of Copenhagen, told me. Car horns and sirens could be made quieter, too, because they wouldn’t have to drown out revving engines. Noises like bicycle bells and people’s voices might become the dominant sounds of a city.

Governments and businesses are already switching to electric fleets. Jim Castelaz, the founder and CEO of Motiv, a California company that manufactures power trains for large electric vehicles, told me that parents now sometimes ask drivers of electric school buses to honk when dropping children off, because they can’t hear the buses coming. (Electric and hybrid vehicles may actually be too quiet; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is working on new rules that will require such vehicles to make a minimum amount of noise at low speeds so that pedestrians can hear them coming.)