Our new electric truck was delivered today. It’ll be a few days before we can share much more. We’ll be procuring plates for it monday, and getting our signage put on mid-September. We’ll post some pictures, videos and thoughts on the truck. It’s not got plates so we didn’t want to risk anything, but we took it for a 7 mile drive and got it up to 65mph. It’s currently charging. But here’s our first initial impressions:
- It’s real. It’s the first electric truck we’ve ever seen in real life, and we own it.
- It sounds WEIRD, it makes weird “electric” sounding noises, unlike the tesla. The VW does this a little but I think it’s fake on the VW. On the truck it’s clearly real and it sounds very futuristic, which surprises me.
- It’s quiet, I can really hear the rollup door bouncing around back there, I can really hear the tires. Usually a diesel makes that less noticeable.
- It pulls pretty similarly to the diesel J05E that would have come in it. Good power, not crazy. Manageable but also capable. Not as jumpy as an NPR with the big 6 liter gas engine, more like a small diesel. It feels like it’s limited at certain revs to keep it from pealing out and then as you speed up it lets you have more power
- It’s less like the tesla and the e-golf we own than I expected.
- The regen isn’t has drastic as I expected, lighter than the tesla, more than the e-golf.
- Hino does make a nice truck, the interior is very “toyota”. Lots of places to stash your junk on the dash. Nicely laid out. Good visibility.
- I’ll be peeling off all the “DEF/DPF” warning stickers. hah!
- The chassis was made in Japan, not one of the domestic North American trucks which surprised me.
More to come!
If you need help with understanding fleet electrification or buying an electric truck…
try this link!
