Ryder Backs the Chanje to Electric Transport With Addition of 125 Medium-Duty Trucks

A major player in the truck leasing and rental business is now the exclusive sales partner for Chanje, a medium-duty electric vehicle company, and will soon be taking delivery of 125 of the company's vans for its rental customers.

Although much of the focus for e-mobility news is on consumer electric vehicles, which would help reduce emissions in the light-duty vehicles category, commercial transport is another huge industry altogether, and one that is responsible for some 23% of the US transportation sector's greenhouse gas emissions. Delivery trucks and service vans and other medium-duty vehicles that flood city streets every day to do their stop-and-go driving could potentially be replaced by cleaner, quieter electric vans and trucks that may help improve local air quality, reduce noise, and decrease ownership costs. One big name in fleet management, Ryder System, has seen the way of the future and is backing an electrified vehicle revolution, or at least enabling an electric transport option as a way of testing the market for further expansion.

At the end of August, Ryder announced that it is now the exclusive sales channel partner and service provider for Chanje's medium-duty electric vehicle (EV) fleet, which seems like a good bid of confidence for the California-based company looking to "meaningfully overhaul the last mile industry."

"We believe electric vehicles will play a major role in the future of commercial transportation and we are proud to partner with Chanje to bring an all-electric medium duty vehicle to market. Through our strategic partnership, Ryder and Chanje will collaborate to promote energy efficiency and innovation in the industry. Chanje offers an innovative product that will help reshape the industry by making commercial electric vehicles more affordable, reliable, and accessible." - Dennis Cooke, President, Global Fleet Management Solutions for Ryder

As part of that commitment to the future of cleaner transportation, Ryder itself is taking delivery of an initial order of 125 of Chanje's electric delivery vans, which will be offered to both ChoiceLease and rental customers in select US markets in California, New York, and Illinois. To support and maintain these new fleet EVs, Ryder is having commercial EV charging stations from Chanje partner eMotorWerks installed at the facilities hosting the vehicles. The eMotorWerks JuiceBox Pro 40 level 2 charging stations are state-of-the-art smart chargers, using cloud-based controls and an automatic energy management system to "intelligently manage EV charging" and to " maximize charging with available renewable energy from the grid."

The first EVs from Chanje are large delivery-style vans, rated as medium-duty with a payload capacity of 6,000 pounds and up to 580 cubic feet of space inside. The V8070 models are said to have a 100-mile range per charge, with a rating of about 50mpg(e), which could result in an estimated 70% fuel cost savings when compared to a conventional vehicle. The vans are also expected to reduce total ownership costs thanks to the fewer moving parts of an electric vehicle that need will maintenance or replacing over the lifetime of the truck, when compared with a gas-powered truck.

"The roll out of our new electric vehicle offering reinforces Ryder’s leadership in commercial advanced vehicle technology solutions and demonstrates our commitment to identifying innovative ways to meet our customers’ transportation needs." - Cooke

If you're in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, San Jose, Chicago, or New York, and find yourself in need of a truck, you may be able to choose an electric one from Ryder in the very near future. No mention was made by Ryder of any pricing for the Chanje trucks.