Will Electric Vehicles Become The Workhorses Of Commercial Fleets?

The electrification of commercial vehicle fleets is well under way and worth paying attention to. One of the companies leading the charge in this area is AMP Holdings and its subsidiary Workhorse. The company is behind a line of medium-duty commercial-grade electric trucks.

In April, AMP announced that its fully-electric medium-duty step van had completed an accelerated durability testing program at the Transportation Research Center in Ohio. The testing was intended to demonstrate that an electric truck could meet the rigorous conditions of package delivery even under adverse conditions.

The success of the test was another step toward the legitimization of the EV industry and will likely serve as a boon for the company itself. CEO Steve Burns, a successful entrepreneur with a history in the tech industry, has alluded to interest in the vehicle by a major commercial client.

With consideration for fuel savings and perks like CARB approval, AMP is lowering the barrier to entry for commercial access to EV fleets. Many of the challenges that face mass-market consumer EVs don’t exist for a package delivery company. Vehicles travel a limited number of miles a day and return to base each night, effectively solving the infrastructure problem.

By acquiring the Workhouse brand and its factory facilities, AMP became a flexible OEM with a lot of potential. EVs may be one of the most interesting things the company is up to, but management realizes that wide-spread EV adoption may be a few years out. With this in mind, AMP offers alternative-fuel trucks using the same chassis, and therefore has a foot in the existing market as well as the growing market.

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