Portland Opens Electric Island - Here's Why It's Important for Electric Big Rigs!

It's all-too-easy to focus on just electric cars when we're covering the world of cleaner, greener, safer and smarter transportation.

But the reality is that if we want a cleaner future, that means that every transportation sector needs to transition away from fossil fuels -- including big rigs.

Which is why we headed to Portland's brand-new Electric Island (just down the road from Daimler Trucks North America's headquarters) to witness the launch of the U.S.' first multi-station charging site for big rigs.

We were lucky enough to interview Maria Pope, CEO and President of Portland General Electric, as well as John O'Leary, President and CEO of Daimler Trucks North America.

And Nikki even got to ride in an all-electric Class-8 Cascadia truck!

Presenter: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield
Script: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield
Produced: Transport Evolved

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[PathosBedlam]

Great video Nikki. The bus and truck fleet is definitely one of the most polluting and the sooner they go clean the better for everyone. 👍.

[Graham_Wideman]

I like how Nikki cadged a ride to make sure these trucks weren't just rolling down hill!

[judebrown]

This is so exciting, isn't it? Many moons ago I was proud to be the second "female" bus driver in London's Tramway Station at Edmonton and I can still remember the smell and heat of the engine next to me in the lovely old Routemaster, not to mention the taste of the diesel fumes. I can't imagine driving a big ol' vehicle
without all of that (or even with that tiddly little steering wheel!) and the sounds and vibration produced! This is going make for some more healthy, less stressed drivers on the road that's for sure, how marvelous is that?! Of course not poisoning the kiddies with the school bus is an added bonus, although in my case it wouldn't have stopped me wanting strangle some of the little blighters... Doing a school run later on in my career is what finished me off for good! 😂

[robingoergner]

Happy that you got the opportunity to cover this, Nikki! This looks to be a very promising way to reduce pollution, especially in urban areas. E-buses and trucks can't come soon enough!

[MilushevGeorgi]

I’m in the transport department of Amazon. Highly interested in these. They cannot make them quick enough.

[georgemead]

I had a brief career as an OTR truck driver and the company I drove for dictated which fuel stops I was required to use based on the best fule costs their routing software could calculate. This was more than a decade ago so it would not be that difficult to adapt it for routing e-trucks. Now, if only they got the low clearance bridges incorporated, I almost hit one their software routed me through ...

[michaelrch]

Fair play to Daimler for getting ahead of the curve on this tech. They will surely be rewarded in the coming years as other makers chase to catch up.

[donaldburkhard]

I have wanted to convert big bus style motor home to ALL electric and the technology from this would work great!

[jacksonbangs]

Cool to see 100% electric big rigs being developed.

[richardgilson]

Loss of audio reminded me of a case where one of our announcers during our small town county fair had a, rarely granted, interview with Loretta Lynn and forgot to take his tape recorder off of pause. Good times!

[davidmccarthy]

I wonder how that eCascadia design would look as a wrap on my Bolt!

[williamclark]

Great to see you cover large vehicle electrification. This is very interesting.

[alaneasthope]

Great looking truck, and great looking cab. Also good to know they are actually being driven by truckers to iron the kinks out. Excellent presentation again by Nikki (even with the sound problems).

[r.a.monigold]

Great piece of reporting AND some excellent good news on the Large Vehicle Market's "move to electrification". Thanks again.

[tanjie]

This is tremendous to see! I’m very excited and optimistic about the future of trucks with companies like this committing to going all electric!

[tspielman]

I would love to test the ecascadia…… peterbilt and Mack also have ev units….. Mack’s is brilliant it’s a trash truck that’s smart!

[dougowt]

The sooner we get these trucks and buses on our streets the better for everyone

[alexzahnd]

Encouraging news and well done. Would love to know more about the technical specs of the e-trucks, kWh battery capacity, kW charging capacity, km/mile range er charge, km/miles pr kWh etc. all important data to compare with the diesel trucks to show that e-trucks ARE already a competitive option.

[lesmorrisett]

Talk about regen braking benefits, a logging company who has ordered e-semis goes up the mountain empty and comes down w/tens of thousands of pounds of timber. Regen braking those loads down mountain declines pays for itself in recharge.

[rob]

Hyliion hyper truck ERX...coming soon. I believe its going to be a game changer for class 8 EV rigs