Southern California Edison (SCE) is the US’ first utility to receive and to test the eCascadia, the Freightliner Class 8 electric truck (earlier post).

The Class 8 truck will be used for a material transport test, which will include moving heavy utility equipment such as transformers, wire reels and switch gears from the Irwindale warehouse to SCE service centers and laydown yards. It has a range of up to 250 miles per charge while towing a 60,000-pound trailer.

SCE is the first utility in the nation to receive and test the eCascadia. Photo credit: Elisa Ferrari

SCE’s testing of the eCascadia is a major step down the path of achieving our company’s recently announced fleet electrification goals. We’ve been on the design team for the eCascadia for the last several years now, and it’s very nice to see our work and Freightliner’s work come to fruition with this product.

—Todd Carlson, SCE principal manager of Fleet Asset Management, who manages the company’s fleet of more than 6,200 vehicles

The utility’s parent company, Edison International, published the 2030 goal to electrify 100% of SCE’s light-duty passenger vehicles, 30% of medium-duty vehicles and pickup trucks, 8% of heavy-duty trucks and 60% of forklifts in its 2019 Sustainability Report.

The company estimates that in pursuing its fleet electrification goals, it will save more than 620,000 gallons of fuel annually and eliminate close to 6,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year, or the same amount that would be saved by taking 7,600 cars off the road for a year or planting and growing nearly 600,000 trees for 10 years.