Transportation Exchange presented by Rush Truck Centres of Canada
If you’re in the transportation industry, the Transportation Exchange podcast is for you. Listen in for insightful conversations with industry leaders covering what keeps us moving, from equipment and maintenance for fleets to new and upcoming regulations and opinions on the industry as it stands today and the road ahead.
Transportation Exchange presented by Rush Truck Centres of Canada
Charging Forward in Isuzu's NRR EV
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, we are joined by Andrew Smith, District Manager at Isuzu Commercial Truck of Canada, to dive into Isuzu’s versatile product lineup, featuring the all-new NRR EV —a Class 5 electric truck. Learn about its extended battery range, ePTO capabilities, key benefits like enhanced visibility, maneuverability, and operational efficiency. Gain insights into the cost savings, sustainability advantages, and support available through tax incentives and grants, making the transition to electric a smart move for your fleet. Tune in now.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Transportation Exchange podcast presented by Rush Trucks into Canada. I'm your host, jason Cuddy, and joining us today is Andrew Smith, who's a district sales manager with Isuzu. Andrew, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2Yeah, thanks very much for having me on.
Speaker 1So we're excited to have you on. We want to kind of do a little bit of a deep dive into everything Isuzu is doing and there's some new stuff to talk about. But before we kind of go deep, let's uh, you know a little bit background of yourself, sure.
Speaker 2So uh, yeah, like Jason said, my name is Andrew Smith. I'm a district manager for Isuzu Commercial Truck of Canada. I've been with Isuzu now for about seven years, but really my history before that, my career history before that, was all in fleet management. So when I joined Isuzu I felt like I had a good knowledge of our customers and how I can try and help understand their needs a little bit better.
Speaker 1Yeah, definitely you come from a good spot, because those are the customers you're dealing with, right? That's exactly right the fleet managers. So you've lived in their life. So, with regards to Isuzu, I mean, there's been a lot going on.
Speaker 2There's some stuff we're going to talk about as we do a little bit deeper dive and maybe kind of walk us through where Isuzu Commercial Truck of Canada has a very diverse product line, from class three right through to class seven gas, diesel and our new battery electric vehicle.
Speaker 2So from the class three vehicle we've got a 13,000 pound GVW gas engine. We go into class four with our NPR HD, which is 14,500 pound GVW, both gas and diesel. We then go into our 16,000 pound truck, our NPR XD gas and diesel regular cabin crew cab. Class five, our NRR gas diesel regular cabin crew cab, and then we move up into our F series, which is our FTR, which is our 26,000 pound truck, and our FVR, which is our 33,000 pound truck. All of the gas engines are a 6.6 liter GM engine that we utilize and the diesel engine in our N series is our 4HK Isuzu engine and with our F series we've partnered with Cummins and Allison to provide a much more bulletproof powertrain system for our trucks, excellent, yeah, and I think the nice part with with the Susan we're used to seeing obviously the little cab overs, but there's, there's so much versatility in them as far as the application and you know where you see them.
Speaker 1You see them obviously in pickup and delivery, but you know you see them in landscape and definitely with with the F series, you get into, you know into a larger application as well, right with the GVW on there. Yeah, absolutely. So one thing that's, I guess I'll say, newer is the EV. So that's kind of been a while coming. It's the right application for where you guys are. So I think part of having you on today was get a bit deeper with the NRR EV, maybe walk us through, I guess, kind of high-level key features, starting with sort of the battery and the range and the performance.
Speaker 2What key features I guess, starting with sort of you know, the battery and the range and the performance. What's the specs on that? Yeah, absolutely so. The NRREV is our class five, 19,500 pound GBW. What's unique, I think, in this application is that, rather than a battery, we have multiple batteries, and these are plug and play batteries. So really, what we've tried to do at Isuzu is make a vehicle that is somewhat customizable to our customers' needs. What I mean by that is we have three different wheelbases, but within that we actually have four different battery pack configurations, so you can get anything from a 60-kilowatt-hour battery all the way up to a 180-kilowatt battery, and one of the benefits of that is you're customizing the vehicle to the customer's range, but also the payload. Obviously, as you know, the more battery, the less payload, um, so we want to make sure that we have a truck that is suitable for a lot of different uses that's different because I think everyone, every other oem so far they may have like two different battery ranges or just one generic one.
Speaker 1Wheelbases will move around a bit. So knowing the application where the Isuzu is going to go into, I think having the different battery components allows you to really kind of fine tune. You know the best application to your point, because a lot of I find a lot of the application is, you know, pickup and delivery city stuff. So range isn't traditionally an issue at that level of weight really you know payload.
Speaker 1And to your point, you get a you know a battery pack that's fully loaded to go, you know, say you know 250, 300 kilometers. That's great, but you've lost thousands of pounds of payload. And if you don't need the range, this you know. You guys at least have gone at it to the point where it's like you can trade off weight for range, especially if you don't need the industry.
Speaker 2From the conversations you've had and what you guys do. What are the applications you're seeing, kind of the early adopters? With regards to the EV, yeah, we're very new to this. So the middle of December we put out a press release saying that we're delivering our first trucks to our first customers. So we're still very new to this, but in terms of the customer's usage, really it's no different than a gas or diesel truck. For us, it's another alternative for the future of powertrain systems and it's a pretty big step for Suzu to come into.
Speaker 2I think the biggest customers that are interested in this are ones that have an environmental sustainable goal. I think it's the customers that recognize that the higher upfront cost, which we'll talk about a little bit more, recognize that over the longterm there's actually cost savings to be had, whether it's beverage delivery, whether it's your landscaping trucks. One of the things we've we've have on our, our EV, is an EPTO, so an electric PTO that you can still utilize dump box applications, reefer applications and things like that. So we tried to make this a truck as another option to our gas and diesel.
Speaker 1Makes sense. And the EPTO is huge, to your point, because it opens up that bandwidth of options. Right, yeah, that's right, because traditionally you know, a lot of everyone's gone first. To your point. Because it opens up that bandwidth of options. Right, yeah, that's right, because traditionally everyone's gone first to market just on EV, which is fine, but it does cut out a certain segment, right. And we know this vehicle product line, especially the NIR itself, is well-suited in that landscaper, small dump, little hook lifts, like all those little where you need something small and nimble, but the payload isn't crazy, they do really, really well. And so coming to the market with it already in place, I think it's a huge win which opens up nicely. And then, with regards you talked about earlier adopters and I think you're seeing fleets, municipalities kind of get into this vehicle traditionally because they see the value of the ownership cost. And we'll get into the TCO a little bit later of how you guys can make sense of it. But to your point, that's kind of where you see this going right.
Speaker 2Yes and no. I think those are some of the earlier adopters. But I also know firsthand from some customer interactions I've had of customers, even with one or two, that are very interested in the EV because of the long-term cost savings.
Speaker 1Makes sense. Yeah, and it's. I mean the nice thing, the history already with Isuzu. These vehicles you know, traditionally on the deal side are fairly bulletproof right. So it has a good you know history going in with long-term ownership.
Speaker 2You're right. I mean Isuzu brings quality, reliability and durability to its name. That's what Isuzu is known for. And having an EV option, hopefully we have those customers' confidence in the backing of Isuzu's name.
Speaker 1And then from a design point of view I think you mentioned earlier, it's basically similar, almost identical to the current N. So for you know, for a customer integrating one into their fleet, it's not like it's a whole onboarding, as far as here's a brand new technology, as far as the drive, you know, get the gauges, the layout, everything is relatively similar for the driver onboarding yeah, if you want to look at it from an external perspective other than the batteries mounted along the side frame, um, it looks exactly like, uh, a normal gas or diesel susu right, so it fits in nicely yeah, it does.
Speaker 2It does I mean the the driver onboarding, like you said? Um, there's some driver training, uh and um knowledge to be had on how to drive an electric vehicle. There are key differences there, but really and truly, an asuzu um, our, our, our key hope is that the asuzu ev is is easy to get into and easy to drive from an asuzu gas or diesel makes sense.
Speaker 1Yeah, and that's that. It just helps integrate into the fleet, yeah, um. So I know one of the big things always comes up with evs, as traditionally it's been obviously the upfront capital cost right, that's, it's uh it is.
Speaker 1what is the new? Emerging technology is expensive. There are some trade-offs obviously in the ownership over the life of the vehicle with regards to offsetting other costs that you would see from diesel. So you know we had mentioned you guys have a TCO. Maybe walk us through kind of the TCO you guys have available and kind of what are the factors you guys look at when you're comparing data?
Speaker 2Yeah. So Isuzu Commercial Truck has invested quite a lot of money in making available a TCO calculator total cost of ownership calculator to all of our salespeople. And really what this total cost of ownership calculator will look at is how long it takes to pay off in the equivalent of a diesel truck or a gas truck. It will also look at emissions and charging needs.
Speaker 2What's really cool there's a lot of really cool features about our TCO and all-encompassing TCO is that a customer can come in and say hey, I drive 200 kilometers a day, I use it seven days a week, 12 months a year, and how does this compare? What we can do is we can actually put in all of those numbers and it will give you not only a payoff but it will show you how many tons of emissions you're saving. It will show you all of the incentives available to you, from federal, provincial right down to municipality, from the ev truck incentives to charging rebates and charger installation rebates and things like that. So we try and look at this as a holistic product and really be able to give that customer a total cost of ownership.
Speaker 1I think it's a good way of doing it.
Speaker 1I've seen other TCOs, other OEMs, where it's traditionally just kind of running capital costs versus maintenance spend and that's kind of where the big picture is and that's usually what most people are looking at.
Speaker 1Right, it's okay, this thing costs 2x what my current one is, but over the same lifespan my maintenance cost decreases, this goes up, and then they can kind of move some numbers around and say, okay, if I hold this a year longer, then all of a sudden, my, my, my cost is, you know, on par or better than before.
Speaker 1But I know there's different levels, especially when you get into the U? S and Canada will always traditionally follow us but there's different levels of, you know, not say rebates, but as as far as how green you are, you have to be able to measure that, you have to be able to track that and show that. And I think for a lot of fleets when you're doing a TCO, it's really just the capital cost yeah, that's right which is obviously the biggest determining factor. But there are those soft items that you need to either be able to show or show you're trending towards. So having a TCO that can give that data for you up front versus having to hire an outside consultant. I think that's a huge part to potentially bringing these vehicles into your fleet.
Speaker 2Yeah, and you know we looked at building our own internal TCO. We've actually hired or paid for a third party TCO that. That has these numbers substantiated through other parties, right? So when we talk about how many thousands of tons of CO2 is saved, it's substantiated through a third party. Trees planted equivalent. It's substantiated through a third party um trees planted equivalent. We can actually show how many trees equivalent have been planted over the one, two or 10 year life cycle of that vehicle as well.
Speaker 1That's pretty cool and the third party gives you some credibility, because I've done in the past where I've done TCOs and it when they're third party. It takes away that bias Because obviously traditionally if someone reaches out to one of the sales reps to run a TCO, inherently you think, oh well, it's skewed and weighted to obviously say this is the best vehicle for your operations and ideally, if it's done properly and the application isn't ideal, it should point that out.
Speaker 2Or at least it'll show you. Hey, this isn't the huge cost savings or this isn't the huge benefit you think it is because your application is not maybe conducive to to the vehicle at this stage. And we've actually taken it a step further where we can compare an Isuzu gas or diesel to the Isuzu NOR, or we can take, let's say, our customers currently operating a fleet of other manufacturers.
Speaker 1We can compare to that manufacturer vehicle as well by using that third-party software that's helpful too, because traditionally you're comparing against the fleet's own data, which again, they don't always necessarily capture the data you're measuring. Traditionally you'll run maintenance TCO costs, and they don't include tires. That's a separate cost, so the data doesn't always seem to line up. So by having all that external data available, you can say okay, what are you using? Okay, pull that in, plug it in and it should be fairly accurate, which will give you probably a better indication of how it stacks up in the real world yeah.
Speaker 1And so part of the TCO it's figuring out the operating costs, the capital costs, but obviously we do have some grants and some assistance from the government. Maybe can walk us through what's from a Canada point of view, where are we at currently? It's Canada point of view where we are currently.
EV Incentives and TCO Evaluation
Speaker 2It's always a changing, evolving and it may change this year as everything changes in the US, but as it stands today, kind of what's on the radar that fleets can tap into, yeah. So another great thing about this TCO is it is powered by Zapieride and JD Power and they are constantly checking all of the different touch points with municipalities, checking all of the different touch points with municipalities, provinces and federally in terms of what is available, how much money is left in those kitties as well. So, for example, in BC, well, right across Canada, we have the federal incentive of $75,000 for our classified vehicle. In BC they have another $75,000 incentive on top of that. Quebec typically, or in the past, has had their own provincial incentive as well. We were notified that those funds ran out, but from what I understand today, it looks like that will be topped up by March, april of next year and then for the rest of Canada, right now it's the federal grant and any municipal grants that are available for charging incentives.
Speaker 1But it's good that you guys can have that, because I know the challenge we've had, especially it's such a new technology right.
Speaker 1So getting data and information has been really the hardest part, like who has what, how do I find it? And you know to your point, okay, there's the federal, which is kind of the easy one to find. Provincials, you know a little bit, you know easier. Municipalities would be a tough one to find if you didn't know the way. And, to your point, the charging all like, there's different programs, that kind of come and go, or even, to your point you know, get topped up or lose the funds, right, so you could start the process today, say, okay, I'm going to get 75,000 from BC and then by the time you're looking to implement it, that's gone, or you can at least see how much is left. Okay, I've got to ask Sudhirin later Because, to your point, quebec have gone through their funds.
Speaker 1They'll probably top it up again. But depending where you were in that buy cycle, if you didn't know it was getting lower, you may get caught out, that's right. So having this visibility, I think is huge. That's a tough one to try and find the right people to connect with and do it.
Speaker 2It really is. I mean, you know, you can see right there that there's $50 million left in this fund versus when it started at $120 million, and depending on the time of year, you can see how quickly you need to act or if you have the time to wait.
Speaker 1Right, Fair enough, and so I mean. The nice part now is we've been waiting for this vehicle, so now it is available.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, we're very excited. I mean, it is a a huge step for us to bring this forward. It's been a long time coming and a lot of effort between Isuzu Motors Limited in Japan and Isuzu Commercial Truck of America and Isuzu Commercial Truck of Canada to bring this forward and it's a really exciting time. It's very innovative. I think we've made some unique options, like I was saying, the battery packs and the different configurations that really make this a truly standout medium-duty battery electric vehicle.
Speaker 1Right and it's starting to roll, I mean, as we speak now. It's in service, it's in the customer's hands, which is nice. That's right, you can obviously do some testing, but get some real-world testimonials and fleets that are adopting and probably have, given where it is, and the customer that it is probably have other EVs in their fleet, so it'll be nice to get some real-world feedback compared to what else they're running and what the expectation level was.
Speaker 2Because it's one thing to the TCO is great, but then, once you get into real world, what actually is the data, which is always nice to see? It is and I can speak from that as well in that before we produced our EV, we had some goals in mind in terms of um kilowatt hours per mile Great, um. Initially we were expecting roughly 1.2 kilowatt hours per mile. Okay, um, and through demos and real world testing and now getting it into customers' hands, um, our expectations were. Our expectations were slightly off. We're actually seeing way better usage and utilization of the batteries. We've had some demonstration with some large fleets and they're seeing as good as 0.9 kilowatt hours per mile, which is phenomenal performance.
Speaker 1That's huge, right, it's nice when it gets out into the real world and it's better than what you expected. It's always good versus the other way. Absolutely. That's a bonus Because, I mean, with this class vehicle, range isn't always the key factor, but there are going to be certain fleets that need that range.
Speaker 1You get to a bit more rural areas or they service rural areas. They're on the edge of uh, you know where we are today, like, I'd say, edge of the gta, and they go east, west, north. You know they need to be able to get back home. Yeah, right, and I was saying, you know the public infrastructure for commercial charging isn't really there yet, so they need to be able to get home. You know, with, with some, some left to be able to charge. So it's good that the range and is there and be able to pick the range you need. I think is is huge, yeah, I think so, and excellent. Well, you know it's good to have you on join us talk about EV. It's, it's been exciting. We've been waiting for this, for this one to come. You know, with regards to the products that we do here, this has been one of the ones I think is the most adaptable, given, you know, the application right.
Speaker 1A lot of pickup delivery, a in the application right, a lot of pickup delivery, a lot of short range, non-range anxiety. Weight's not usually a huge issue, so I think that the timing's good and then the product is the right product for the market. So it's nice to finally see it and it's nice to hear a little bit of that on it. And I think, to your point, the TCO is huge right. So pull in the sales rep. They can work through Asuzu corporately to run the TCO, get the data, see what the numbers look like and then start executing a plan for adoption into their fleet.
Speaker 2Yeah, so this TCO that I've been mentioning, it's internal to our Isuzu salespeople. So customers that have any questions can go into the local dealership, talk to their salespeople and they can help assist them with their planning.
Speaker 1Excellent, no, that would be cool to see. I'm excited, excited, actually to go in and try it and see, see that it exists and play with it, and I've played with some other ones, so be it's. The data sounds immense as far as what you pull and I think in this case, the more information you can give the fleet managers to make a good business decision, the better right, because the cost upfront cost is high.
Speaker 2It is high, but it's just one piece of the puzzle in the transition to a more sustainable, environmentally friendly fleet, yeah, and I think this will help cement that right.
Speaker 1It gives you some ammunition to go back to management or investors whoever you need to go to and say, yes, but and here's the data and here's what it solves. Or, a lot of municipalities or companies have a green mandate right. So, on top of just, we can make sense of the cost. It's like, yes, we can make sense of the cost Plus, here is actually the footprint that we're creating. You know, from a green point of view, that we can also speak to up front, which helps you know with their relationship with their customers.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think you know, in terms of those customers, we look at that lifecycle and, just for your listeners' information, we're seeing cost parity in about two and a half years. Wow, depending on the province that they live in and how many miles they drive a day, it's anywhere as early as two and a half years to about five years of cost parity and actually being a more, uh, cost friendly vehicle to operate.
Speaker 1No, it's good to know, because that's that's usually where people are trying to figure out what's your life cycle of vehicle? You know, and then if you give that you'll save five years. In the extreme you're getting cost parity. Well, you know the vehicle will land longer. Yeah right, you can swap out boxes if you need to, if they're you know, but you can get, you know, maybe twice the life. And you know the maintenance. Traditionally, the maintenance costs on the diesel side or gas side start to exponentially get higher as it gets older and so hopefully with this you don't have that same, because there's not as much there.
Speaker 1So that should help also make just the cost of it that little bit better. If you're going to go forward, awesome. Well, thank you for coming in, appreciate you for taking the time to sit down and walk us through specifically the EV and RR, but the whole product line at Asus. It's always good to kind of get updated on what's new. You know what's all there and you know where you guys are and kind of where you're headed, so I appreciate you taking the time to do that.
Speaker 1Yeah, again thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. Excellent, well, hey, that concludes today's episode. We want to thank Andrew for joining us and, to catch up on past episodes, check out transportation exchange podcastsca.