ATN #418

TRUCKS
Fuso eCanter
SHORT
’N SWEET
It is becoming increasingly apparent
that electric trucks are the future for
local delivery work and, right now,
Fuso’s eCanter is at the forefront of this
emerging revolution in urban freight
movement. Still, the onus is entirely
on suppliers such as Fuso and its
Daimler masters to prove the worth of
their electric candidates. That might be
easier said than done
WORDS STEVE BROOKS
Sometimes, things just don’t go the way you
expect. Like, it was supposed to be a simple,
short suburban drive of Fuso’s recently released
electric eCanter in Sydney’s west. A refresh, of sorts, of
what we’d already experienced in previous stints, first
in a Japanese prototype on Fuso’s test track and then
in late 2019, behind the wheel of an early evaluation
unit through the streets of Melbourne.
What wasn’t expected, however, was that the Sydney
stint would be quite so short.
Someone, apparently, had forgotten to flick the
switch the night before and, rather than a full charge,
the dash ‘distance predictor’ said there was only
58km worth of charge in the batteries rather than the
reported ‘full charge’ potential of 100km.
Still, it was at least a worthwhile exercise to some
extent. Fuso’s claim, for example, is that eCanter’s
driving range is determined on carrying a full load
at the vehicle’s gross vehicle mass of 7.5 tonnes.
60 ATN July 2021 FULLYLOADED.COM.AU