The NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) has taken the Volvo FM Electric for an extended test drive to understand how low emission vehicles can be integrated into an emergency services fleet.
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From the Glendenning headquarters to the border city of Albury, then arriving in Thurgoona to be displayed at the NSW RFS Championships, the electric prime mover tackled the 550-kilometre route with an RFS water tanker in tow.
Assessing the performance, driveability and charging experience of the truck was the driving team, including Inspector Brendan Doyle, RFS Logistics Manager and RFS Logistics & Transport Supervisor.
Doyle says the drive allowed an opportunity to feel and experience an electric prime mover on public roads.
“It also allows us to consider where a vehicle like this could fill roles within our logistics fleet in the future,” he says.
Over the course of the trip, the truck averaged 88.7 km/h with an energy consumption of 1.24kWh/km.
Required charging time was 120 minutes to complete the 6.2-hour trip with stops made at Goulburn and Tarcutta.
Peter Duff says the driving experience was sensational.
“One of the key takeaways for me was that you could take anyone familiar with an existing Volvo truck and they’d be able to drive this without additional training at all,” he says.
Volvo Group Australia Vice President, Cameron Bettany says there has been a lot of interest in battery electric trucks from fire and emergency services around the country.
“Fire and emergency services are on the front line when it comes the impact of climate change on our local environment,” he says.
“Many of these services are acutely aware of the need to reduce emissions, not only from a climate perspective, but also from a health and safety perspective for those first responders.”
“Emergency services operate in a complex environment and with that a mix of technology types will be required to enable sustainable operational capability, battery electric trucks are a key part of this mix.”
He says it’s great to see RFS investigating how these vehicles perform in real-world settings.
Volvo Trucks Australia offers an electric equivalent for the entire range of diesel-powered vehicles.
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