Electrifying
Commercial Fleets
Electric Powered Intelligent ChassisMOTIV The transportationsector emits more^
greenhouse gases
than any other in the
U.S., and is second
worldwide only to
fossil fuels burned for
power and heat. Car
manufacturers like
Nissan and Tesla have
tried to get out in
front of this by mass-
producing electric
passenger vehicles—
but commercial
trucks, vans, and
buses, which are of-
ten custom-built for
clients, have been
slower to transition.
California-based
Motiv wants to
speed that process
along. Most custom-
designed commercial
vehicles, says CEO
Jim Castelaz, gener-
ally start with a simi-
lar chassis. Motiv’s
Electric Powered In-
telligent Chassis, or
EPIC, built to the
same configurations
as the most popular
Ford diesel-baseframes, provides
manufacturers with
a turnkey solution to
electrify their com-
mercial lines. Castelaz
estimates that about
80% of diesel-
powered commercial
vehicles can be made
electric with EPIC,
which can be used in
new vehicles or
swapped in on exist-
ing ones, and says
that EPIC lowers op-
erating costs by 85%.
“Our business is free-
ing fleets from fossil
fuels,” he says.
So far, a handful
of distribution-based
companies have be-
gun integrating the
Motiv EPIC. The linen-
delivery company
AmeriPride is slowly
electrifying its 50-
vehicle California
fleet. And in January,
the U.S. Postal Ser-
vice, which operates
more than 215,000
trucks, announced a
small trial converting
some of those vehi-
cles to EPIC. “We tell
fleet operators that if
they have a reason-
ably high monthly
fuel bill, yet their vehi-
cles never exceed
100 miles a day,
they’re going to be a
great candidate for
electrifying,” Castelaz
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