Twelve years ago, Ian Wright and some fellow engineers launched Tesla Motors, a Silicon Valley company that has helped jumpstart the market for electric cars.
Now, the Tesla co-founder wants to electrify noisy, gas-guzzling trucks that deliver packages, haul garbage and make frequent stops on city streets.
His latest venture, Wrightspeed, doesn't make the whole truck. Rather it sells electric powertrains that can be installed on medium-and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, making them cleaner, quieter and more energy-efficient.
"We save a lot on fuel. We save a lot on maintenance, and we make the emissions compliance much easier," said Wright, a New Zealand-born engineer who left Tesla when it was still a small startup in 2005.
Wrightspeed is one of a growing number of companies that are trying to transform the market for commercial trucks that consume billions of gallons of fuel while spewing tons of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and other pollutants.
While more consumers are switching to electric cars like the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt or Tesla Model S, convincing commercial fleet owners to replace their diesel trucks won't be easy.
"It takes a lot of technological ambition to break into such an old and established market," said Mark Duvall, a research director at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto. "If you want to sell a fleet owner an electric truck, you have to convince them that it's better than what they're already using. So the bar is set very high."
Wright's company is installing its powertrains on 25 FedEx delivery trucks and 17 garbage trucks for the Ratto Group, a Santa Rosa-based waste management company.
Its plug-in powertrains feature an electric engine, battery system and on-board power generator that runs on diesel or natural gas and recharges the battery when it gets low.
It costs USD 150,000 to USD 200,000 to install a Wrightspeed motortrain, while it costs, for example, about USD 500,000 for a new garbage truck.
The San Jose-based company is generating interest from trucking fleet owners who are scrambling to meet California's increasingly strict emissions standards but don't want to replace the entire vehicle, Wright said.
"You can take this truck that you've invested all this money in and it's still in good shape, and you can swap out the powertrain for our powertrain and suddenly you're emissions-compliant," Wright said.
To meet growing demand, Wrightspeed is preparing to move into a former aircraft hangar at the decommissioned U.S. Naval Air Station in Alameda. The company plans to expand its workforce from roughly 25 to 250 employees over the next three years, Wright said.
The Ratto Group, which collects garbage and recycling in Marin and Sonoma counties, is giving Wrightspeed a chance, retrofitting some of its garbage trucks. It could convert many more of its 300 vehicles if the technology performs as hoped.
