When it comes to commercial vehicle electrification, fleet operators have spent the last decade piddling around with pilots of a few vehicles. Thank goodness, it appears that those days are over—we’re seeing more and more announcements of serious orders.

The latest of these comes from food service distribution giant Sysco, which has signed a letter of intent to purchase up to 800 battery-electric Freightliner eCascadia Class 8 tractors from Daimler Truck North America by 2026. The first eCascadia is expected to arrive at Sysco’s Riverside, California site later this year.

Sysco distributes food products to restaurants and other food service facilities—it currently operates 343 distribution facilities worldwide and serves more than 650,000 customer locations. The 800 e-trucks on order represent only a small fraction of its fleet. Sysco says it plans to electrify 35 percent of its US fleet by 2030. 

Daimler Truck and its US Freightliner brand recently announced the official start of series production of the eCascadia after “well over one million miles of testing in daily customer operations.”

Source: Daimler Truck