Coca-Cola Company to deploy electric delivery trucks to save fuel and go greener

The Coca-Cola Company has announced that it will be using electric delivery trucks to serve urban markets in an effort to cut down on fuel costs and reduce the pollution that the company produces overall. Coke already operates one of the largest heavy-duty hybrid electric fleets in the country. The new eStar all-electric, zero emission trucks are part of the growing alternative fuel vehicle use that coke has started and by the end of the year 750 trucks will be in its fleet.

Right now Coke has 650 hybrid trucks in its fleet. The new all electric trucks will be deployed in San Francisco, NYC, Washington D.C., and Hartford, Conn. Two trucks will also be deployed in LA. The eStar trucks have zero emissions and can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 10 tons annually compared to normal vehicles.

Navistar is building the eStar vehicles and they will be able to run up to 100 miles per charge. A full charge takes 6-8 hours to complete. When the vehicles are needed faster than the recharge cycle can be finished the cassette-style battery packs can be swapped in 20 minutes allowing a hot battery ready to go all the time. Another cool thing about the eStar trucks is that when they reach the end of their usable life about 50% of the vehicles can be recycled.