Belgium's Anheuser-Busch Buys 21 Chinese Electric Trucks for California

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Heavy Duty Trucking (HDT)  /  October 2, 2019

Anheuser-Busch will be deploying 21 battery-electric trucks in California to showcase economic and environmental sustainable warehousing and distribution technology for fleets.

The brewing company is deploying trucks from BYD Auto, manufacturer of commercial electric trucks, and has also partnered with the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE), and ENGIE Services U.S. (ENGIE) for the distribution, according to BYD.

The Zero Emission Beverage Handling and Distribution at Scale project will showcase BYD’s second generation 8TT Class 8 electric trucks at four Anheuser-Busch distribution facilities across southern California, in Sylmar, Riverside, Pomona, and Carson.

As part of the project, a southern California-based team from ENGIE, an energy services provider, will lead the design and installation of charging infrastructure at all four facilities, BYD said. ENGIE will also be installing and commissioning a 958.5 kW solar array at the Carson site, which will generate zero-emissions power to offset the use of conventional energy in the charging process, further reducing emissions and resource consumption.

“At Anheuser-Busch, we are committed to leading our industry towards a more sustainable future by reducing our carbon emissions across our value chain by 25% by 2025,” said Angie Slaughter, VP of Sustainability Procurement at Anheuser-Busch.

To facilitate the project, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) awarded funds to the CTE, a leading nonprofit in the zero-emission vehicle industry, who will be responsible for project oversight, development, management, and reporting during this deployment, according to a release. CTE will also provide technical support, risk analysis and mitigation strategies, permitting, equipment and station deployment, training, and assistance with commissioning.

The project is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide program that puts billions of Cap-and-Trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment — particularly in disadvantaged communities. The project is expected to result in emissions reductions of 910 metric tons of CO2 per year, the equivalent of taking almost 200 passenger vehicles off the road. CARB anticipates the project will be replicated statewide.

 As part of the initial validation, Anheuser-Busch put the BYD 8TT through extensive testing on range, acceleration, gradeability, charging speed, and more.

The project includes equipment testing, a one-year demonstration period, data collection, and associated reporting. CTE anticipates the trucks to begin operation near the end of 2019 with full project completion in early 2021.

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