Diesel-Electric Pickup Retrofit Kit

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Big news for truck enthusiasts! Edison Motors, renowned for creating the world's first diesel-electric semi-truck, has just announced an exciting development for pickup truck owners. Responding to overwhelming demand, we're thrilled to introduce a pickup version of our revolutionary semi-truck technology.

Imagine transforming your classic Chevy or old Ford pickup into an eco-friendly powerhouse. Our retrofit kit, designed with our no-planned obsolescence ethos, offers easy repair and maintenance, ensuring longevity and better performance. The kit includes the Edison E-axle, replacing old axles for improved torque, and a setup to swap your drive line and transmission for a more efficient generator, along with batteries and an inverter control unit.

Our goal is to extend the life of beloved pickup trucks, enhancing their power while reducing fuel consumption. The key lies in our diesel generator system, running at a constant RPM to work seamlessly with the batteries, ensuring peak load demand is met without a hitch.

For those interested in upgrading, we plan to establish a dealership service network. This will enable us to distribute easy-to-install kits to certified Edison installers, ensuring a smooth and professional retrofitting process for your pickup.

And there's more for our supporters! If you reserve a truck kit, you'll be among the first to receive it in production order. Plus, if you're passionate about our vision and want to become a dealer for Edison motors kits, sign up below! We're offering exclusive training and certification to our early adopters.

Join us in our mission to create the most practical and sustainable electric pickup truck kit on the market. Your support can help keep these trucks running efficiently for years to come. Subscribe to our channel for more updates, and don't forget to hit the like button if you're excited about this innovation!

🚚 Edison Motors: By Truckers, For Truckers! 🚚

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🔧 Built by Truckers, for Truckers 🔧

Founded by Chace Barber and Eric Little in 2016, Edison Motors is a testament to the trucking spirit. Beginning with a 1969 Kenworth Logging Truck named "Old Blue," they journeyed from Merritt, BC, hauling logs to the Yukon and drilling rigs in Alberta. Frustrated with newer trucks, they rebuilt classics from the frame up, expanding into power generation and off-grid solar systems in 2019. Their journey led to the creation of the Edison Truck, a robust electric truck tailored to logging and heavy vocational industries.

🔩 Upgrade Without Replacing: Edison Electrification Kit 🔩

Keep trucks on the road longer with the Edison Electrification kit. Upgrade your driveline to electric without replacing the entire truck. Ideal for vocational applications, this kit is a cost-effective solution. Unlike other electric trucks, Edison Motors offers customer choice. Choose between Rebuilding (utilizing existing cab and frame rails) or Remanufacturing (brand new frame and chassis).

🚚 Payload Efficiency: The Weight Balance 🚚

Edison Trucks match the weight of a normal diesel truck. With reduced motor weight and additional fuel balancing out battery weight, experience efficiency and increased payload capacity. The L series, though slightly heavier, remains comparable to a normal diesel truck.

🛠️ Keep Your Equipment with Rebuilt Trucks 🛠️

For vocational trucks, keep your equipment with a rebuilt truck. Edison's e-pto and control system integrate seamlessly. No need to replace your entire body when upgrading to an electric truck.

🔧 Bespoke Manufacturing: Handcrafted to Your Needs 🔧

The manufacturing process at Edison Motors is a testament to their commitment to customer satisfaction. Each Edison Truck undergoes a meticulous five-step process, from frame and rolling chassis preparation to final touches and rigorous testing. The focus is on building a truck that reflects the customer's requirements, embracing the philosophy of "Building The Truck Of The Future With The Quality Of The Past."

🔌 Electric or Diesel-Electric: Your Power, Your Choice 🔌

Edison Motors offers both fully electric and diesel-electric vocational trucks based on customer demands. The onboard generator ensures continuous operation in areas lacking charging infrastructure.

💡 Advantages of Electric: Power, Torque, Longevity 💡

Edison Trucks bring increased power, torque, reliability, and longevity. Inspired by electric freight trains, regenerative ability harnesses energy for efficient uphill climbs.

🌍 Join Edison Motors on the Road to Sustainability! 🌍

[RagingDuck]

I was a very against electric but you guys are changing my mind by actually doing it in a way that seams more reasonable than what other companies are doing

Edit: How did this become a popular comment?!

[andrewsiebert]

I have been wanting something like this for 20 years. Diesel Electric Locomotives changed the way railroads move freight, and the auto industry never caught on. Thank you for your innovation.

[---l---]

Time to start looking for high mileage, well maintained single cabs.

Thanks for working on this

[TruckWick]

This is going to be huge! Especially if it can be made to retro fit into all the trucks that started the def conversion in 2006 with the def burners that are going out and cost 15k to replace. If they can be converted to electric the trucks can still continue life.

[breisch]

I love this idea! I have to be honest though, I wish it was offered in a kit form sold direct to customers as well. There's so much emphasis on right to repair and simple parts so that the trucks are easy to maintain and keep on the road it makes me wish that initial installation didn't rely on a distributor and dealer network. These are just my 2 cents. Now when can we expect the semi retrofit kits to come out? I've got an old international just sitting that is begging for this system while I'm still running my Peterbilt.

[fluffygamer]

You guys and your idea on the big rigs lead to my buddy and I doing our undergrad degree project (cap-stone) in mechanical engineering on a hybrid pickup truck with only electric drive (like a train we related it too). The spec competitor was the 2022 Ram 2500 with a max towing capacity of 20, 000 lb.
Ended up choosing traditional drive-train from the transfer case to the wheels. Reasoning for this came down to wanting less unsprang mass from e-axles (may have been the same, was hard to get specifications from companies while being students), keep off-road capability by not having any coolant or electrical lines going down to axle height, and when in 2WD mode would have less inertia to spin front diff and such (locking and unlocking hubs were included in this thought). In doing so we imagined this would keep the rugged truck feel while maintaining reliability and reparability ease based on what current parts are available, and general automotive knowledge could be still used to repair at the shop or at home (we do our own vehicle maintenance at home).

Now this where we definitely went overkill, but saw some farmers driveways between Thunder Bay and Kenora Ontario that were really steep and I have a buddy in Caledon with cattle and his roads and driveways can be steep too, so we used 20, 000 lb load on a 30% (15 degrees if memory serves me correct) incline, in short we can accelerate up to 60km/h up 30% We also kept in the back of our minds that this power-plant would probably get used in 2500s all the way up the 6500s like current Duramax, Cummins and powerstrokes, so it'd be okay to overkill (reliability).
This lead us to go with 2 Dana traction motors (pretty sure it was the HV800) with about a 2.2:1 reduction gearbox before transfer case (used 4.10 ring gear in diffs). The gear box used a single ratio double-helical gear design to take the axial load off the case bearings and self align itself along with cut down on noise unlike a straight-cut spur gear. The gear box was never optimized and if I could go back I would use a larger pitch and investigate if the motors could attach to each other. What I mean by that is if they had an input section on the opposite side of the output, because they way they were designed was to be side-by-side in the transmission tunnel. This lead to having a massively sized gearbox due to the motor diameters.

Determining energy needed to travel down the road with the 20, 000 lb load also was not perfect by any account. Found a 100kW generator would work best for our model (may be overkill or under, never got around to simulation) which led us to the DG series from CAT. Found the diesel C4.4 and C3.6 could do the job while cutting down displacement and maximizing efficiency with the steady RPM. Now the C3.6 had to run a lot harder and in doing so would burn more fuel so that was opted out, the C4.4 could run the same power out while burning less which meant higher efficiency.
Also chose a 400V drive system so specd out rectifier and inverter to change energy from AC to DC for batteries and DC to AC for motors. Now being more a theoretical design that would be used in the near future we wanted to use the up and coming sodium ion batteries for a multitude of reasons to choose over lithium ion even though the energy density is much greater on lithium, Why? energy density is in the diesel fuel, batteries are used mainly for daily commuting and errands (300-450km range with 3 arrays of batteries). Battery placement was under the back seat of the cab and under the box.

Looking forward to what you guys come up with and the reasoning behind the parts, I loved working through this problem with my buddy and we came out with a fairly decent grade.

[Foodstampsandfuelclamps]

Please bring this to the U.S I would so swap this in a few rigs I own. Would be awesome to keep the old suburban going longer with less emissions.

[dwong]

Glad you're going for the pickups too. Hope there will be an option to buy the kit/components and do it ourselves for those of us that want that

[kirenscragg]

I hope to one day see a Edison Motors Station Wagon.

[AleksanderLydkunst]

It would be incredible if y’all made retrofit kits for service/trade vehicles, on the road all day from job site to job site, especially delivery vehicles! Hybrid is definitely the way to go!
Plus I would absolutely love to convert a vintage van and work out of that thing all day 😎

[breakinggames]

You guys are doing electric vehicles right unlike other brands you guys are making something to last you have my full respect and you will have it from a lot of other people and automotive technicians as well. Cant wait to try this on a 2004 gmc sierra 2500hd

[chuckvoss]

Awesome!!! Awesome Awesome!!! Imagine a small diesel engine/ generator?! So many good engines to choose from, and they would never die or break down. And you could have power outlets for portable power. Nuts.

[fishsticks]

Still have the issue of when diesel power magazine I think it was had that highway blue Ford on the cover.. what a incredible truck that was

[smokejumper]

If I had a shop, I’d be signing up to be an installer. The concept and practicality of this just makes sense.

[hartsfire]

i hope you understand just how much work you are going to have.. if you get down here in the USA you will have thousands in line.

[nathanielmoore]

I have a Class A motorhome with a Ford 460. I get 5.7mpg fully loaded at 20, 000lbs. I don't have the cash for a swap rn, but I'd definitely be interested in checking it out in the future.

[hanneruther]

I’d love to have this for my 1965 f250 crew cab. When I go to MIT next year, I’ll need to do this as a project

[Fightre_Flighte]

The instant i get ASCE certified, I'd love to be an installer. I've been watching this progress, and have been enjoying every second of it.
Finally someone with the funding has followed through with the idea my 14 year old brain fetched, but couldn't execute.

[ryanmartinage]

You should do a medium duty cab chassis as they can have 10’ beds. Would allow for the payload and space needed to make a “clean” pickup for hd pickup work.

[FixitFred]

I want to see Deboss garage install one of these kits