The Amped EV Podcast

Tires wear faster on EVs as a result of the added weight of the vehicle and the near-instant torque provided by the all-electric drivetrain. Can tiremakers really combat this by tweaking the compounding or materials and putting an EV stamp on the sidewall of the tire? The short answer: Yes! The long answer: Yes... but maybe we're asking the wrong question. Tires are complicated and offer endless v...

It's easy to read the headlines on social media and pontificate on where the market is headed in the comment sections of all your best friends' posts, but if you really want to develop a solid understanding it's best to talk directly with those making waves in the industry. There's no better place to do that than on the tradeshow floor. Sustainability and electrification seem to be all the rage in...

Ponder this, non-EV owners: Would you accept an EV as your next vehicle if, no matter your budget, you knew you'd always have the range you needed without ever having to plug in to charge up? If you ask Jeremy McCool, founder and CEO of HEVO, this promise will be the catalyst that will convert the masses to EV owners. "The one thing that wireless does better than anything else in terms of accelera...

If you're an EV owner, you're going to want to own a home charging station too. However, about a third of the U.S. population rented the space where they lived in 2021. That complicates things and slows EV adoption rates across the board. But where there are problems, so too are opportunities. On this week's show, we speak with the CEO of Refuel Electric Vehicle Solutions, a company that is helpin...

As EV adoption grows, so too does the basic understanding of how these vehicles function. While it may still seem bonkers, EVs are managing to take us from Point A to Point B using only a few dozen moving parts, in stark contrast to the tens of thousands you may find in vehicles with internal combustion engines. As you could imagine, this ultimately leads to fewer opportunities for something to go...

If you're an EV owner, you can likely attest: Oftentimes, there's a problem with charging infrastructure. Maybe it was deployed in an area that doesn't make much sense, or the charging software is malfunctioning. Maybe it isn't well-lit. Maybe there isn't any security in the area for the EV driver. Plus, the driver is there for a while – wouldn't it be great if there was a snack or, even better, a...

The EV headlines just don't stop coming, and each one poses more questions than it answers. We are expecting more than 100 new EV models between now and the year 2026. China is allegedly leading the EV arms race, but the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill is throwing billions of dollars at revitalizing the U.S. electricity grid as well as deploying new charging stations all around the country. Not to...

Electric commercial trucks are out there, and fleets are starting to use them in shorter routes that work for their limited battery range. In these cases, the limited range has a workaround, but what about if you are limited in what cargo you can haul? That's what is happening to trucks hauling goods that need to be kept cool. Typically there's a workaround to that too – if you don't mind investin...

In late October, the EPA announced nearly $1 billion was awarded through the Clean School Bus Rebate Lottery program to support 389 school districts across the country with their school bus electrification projects. The intention of this program is to accelerate electrification by giving schools the financial resources to transition their diesel bus fleets to all-electric. On this episode of The A...

What do you do when you're given a $1 million check to find an integrated Class 3-5 EV chassis? If you're working with The Shyft Group, you ask for $8 million more to develop one yourself. The Shyft Group is betting that by designing and manufacturing its own Class 3-5 Blue Arc chassis and bodies in-house from the ground up, using well-respected component suppliers like Dana for eAxles and Hendric...

Everyone is talking about EVs, so getting caught up in the hype is easy. The problem is, EVs aren't yet suitable for every use case, and jumping into electrifying your fleet with eyes closed can have severe consequences. There's so much to think about: What are your routes? What infrastructure do you need? How much range do you need? The list goes on. Get the answer to any of these questions wrong...

EV charging is easier said than done, and it's one of the biggest hurdles to successful full-scale EV adoption. Now, imagine you own a fleet of electrified vehicles. If you don't have the right infrastructure in place, your what-seemed-to-be solid EV investment is now one built on sand. On the surface, it can seem like that EV infrastructure rests solely on your shoulders – but it doesn't have to....

The best way to explain what it's like to drive an electrified vehicle is to convince them to get behind the wheel, and that's exactly what Volvo Trucks North America recently did for us during its Electromobility Summit in Dublin, Va. The one-pedal driving, the instant torque, the regen braking... we get the full experience – all while carrying a 79,000-lb. payload behind us. The goal for Volvo T...

You know that old saying "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again"? Keep that one in the back of your head as you watch this week's episode, because when it comes to installing charging infrastructure at scale, chances are you won't get far if you give up early on. It isn't easy. Installing charging infrastructure takes a lot of effort, time and money. But, West Michigan International – a tr...

When people start talking about EVs, the big ol' lithium-ion battery tends to get a lot of the limelight. But EVs have dozens of other components needed to make them operate as expected, including another, smaller battery. Just like a car with an internal combustion engine, most EVs require a 12V battery in addition to the big one at center stage. In fact, the 12V battery is supremely important to...

Here's the definitive truth: As the technology stands today, electric vehicles are a fantastic fit for some applications and not so great for others. Last-mile delivery, those routes that bring a product from the warehouse shelf to the customer’s doorstep, happens to fall into that first category. EVs fit in so well here because last-mile offers defined routes that can be planned to maximize the e...

For electric vehicles to ultimately work – I mean really work, at scale – it's going to take so much more than a fancy-looking new car or truck with a fancy new integrated electric powertrain parked in every driveway across the nation. There's an underground component to this whole thing too, both metaphorically and literally. It takes groups of dedicated men and women willing to the often-thankle...

There’s a moment when you’ve been working toward something where that “something” becomes very real and all the excitement you used to feel about it takes a back seat to the challenges that lie ahead. Moving forward means taking a deep breath, swallowing hard and remembering why you started down this path in the first place. Then you plow ahead. That moment for commercial decarbonization efforts w...

Sono Motors might be on to something. The idea is that if a solar-powered electric vehicle can recharge its battery via the sun equal to a driver's average commute time, the driver will never have to worry about range anxiety creeping into their consciousness ever again. And that's the goal of the Sono Sion, the company's solar-powered consumer vehicle with production beginning in 2023. "The purpo...

Hey, EVs need maintenance and repairs too. But working on an EV shouldn't be done by just anyone – it takes a very particular set of skills (perhaps even skills acquired over a very long career). These vehicles aren't your grandfather's, working via internal combustion engines, and it takes a skilled technician to know how to safely maintain these relatively new components. This poses a problem. T...

As soon as Amped co-host and Fleet Equipment Director of Content Jason Morgan stamped his ticket to the 2022 ACT Expo in Long Beach, Calif., I knew we weren't going to be able to let him go at it alone. So I crawled into his backpack and stowed away across the country to join him in witnessing the reveal of all the latest mind-bending decarbonization technologies and sustainability-driving service...

Here on The Amped EV Podcast, we talk all the time about what it's like to drive a vehicle with an electric powertrain, but driving an electric Class 7 truck is a bit more intimidating... or is it? To show off all the nifty features of the Volvo VNR electric truck, Jason Morgan, co-host of The Amped EV Podcast and content director for Fleet Equipment was recently invited out to Greensboro, N.C. to...

About a year ago, Daimler Trucks North America opened what it refers to as a "heavy-duty electric truck charging site, called 'Electric Island'" in Portland, Ore. The goal of Electric Island is to help accelerate the development, testing and deployment of zero-emissions commercial vehicles. A year later, that hasn't changed, but the team has learned an awful lot about what it takes to successfully...

Bi-directional charging has massive potential to be a game-changer in the EV world. It provides consumers an affordable way to store excess energy generation and reuse it on demand whenever they want. A driver can fill his or her car battery during the day when the sun is out and reuse it in the evening during peak hours, when electricity is more expensive. Or, the driver can fill up the car batte...

Look, we just saw a charging station at a bank in Akron, Ohio! That must be a sign that these things have got to be darn near popping up everywhere at this point, right? Not quite. Honestly, though, the numbers aren't terrible. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, there are 46,286 locations in the U.S. where you can charge your EV at a public charging station. But is this enough? On this ep...