First Electric Rubbish Truck in Southern Hemisphere Shines with HELLA Lamps
20 February 2014
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Following a strive for sustainability and saving valuable resources for a better, greener tomorrow, HELLA promised full support to make the first electric truck a success; supplying the whole lighting equipment for the one of its kind-vehicle with high-end HELLA products. With zero air pollution, a significant smaller carbon footprint, less noise as well as cheaper maintenance and running costs than a diesel truck, the Kapiti Coast District Council knew they were onto a winner when they secured the first electric rubbish truck in the southern hemisphere. Charged overnight with cheap night-rate electricity the state-of-the-art truck can travel for more than 100 km unplugged. |
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Graham McPhail, HELLA’s Lower North Island Sales Manager, heard about the build of this ground breaking vehicle from Grant Moody from HELLA distributor Transport Wholesale LTD, who sponsored and supplied the engineering for the clean, green truck. Graham McPhail was then introduced to George Zander, designer and creator of the ZEV Enviro 9000, which was built from scratch. While the cab, frame, differential and suspension were purchased as one part, stripped down modified and reassembled, the real tricky part was designing and building a battery management system to ensure optimum battery performance. That took many years of thorough planning since everything on the vehicle needed to be designed and built to fit around the special batteries and electric motor.
Another obstacle was the lighting. Being limited to battery drive it was essential to limit the power consumption of all other electrical systems to an absolute minimum. With standard lighting systems consuming a lot of the energy the building-team faced a problem and almost had to boost the energy supply system, explains Hugo Monteith from HELLA Retail Partner, Autokraft Ltd., who wired the lighting.
Enter HELLA. With the company’s long history of supporting the automotive industry with innovative and energy efficient lighting solutions as well as HELLA’s environmental dedication, McPhail discussed the issue with HELLA New Zealand Managing Director Martin Reinbach.
Following HELLA’s strive for sustainability and saving valuable resources for a better, greener tomorrow, Martin promised HELLA’s full support to make the first electric truck a success and supplied all of the lighting equipment for the one of its kind-vehicle with high-end HELLA products.
The unique ZEV Enviro 9000 is shining bright with HELLA headlamps, a Safety DayLights™ kit, stop, indicator and tail lamps, front position and side marker lamps as well as amber dash mount lamps – all superior quality LED based systems. Being highly energy efficient, ultra durable and maintenance free, true to the Fit and Forget by Design philosophy, HELLA’s LED lamps elegantly solved the power consumption problem. With a light colour similar to daylight, the HELLA LED headlamps are also easy on the eyes of the driver and improves night vision. Passive cooling elements and no movable parts mean no maintenance and a long service life.
Challenge solved!