Nordresa builds electric…

Nordresa builds electric power train for commercial vehicles

We have performed a demonstration project with Purolator in Montreal last winter. Our solution uses original vehicle's chassis and body and replaces the gasoline or diesel original power train with state of the art direct drive electric motor. Our system is offered as a vehicle up-fit and we are a registered technology in the Ecocamionnage program. Our solution actually receives a 50 % up to 75 k$ subsidy in Quebec.

As we are dealing with large fleet operators such as Purolator, FedEx, UPS and many other, we would like to be included in your program. As for now, it seems that conversions are not supported by the program, which at some point limits the payback period for our customers. Our system can be installed on new vehicles or used ones, giving an additional 10 to 12 years to the vehicle power train.

Further more, to support electrification of urban deliveries, we recommend that the maximum support from the program to be relatively high for electric vehicles. The concept of incentive is to encourage the customers to shift over from one existing technology to a more responsible one. We can offer 3.8 years of payback with the incentive. We target to reach 200 units per year before we can sell at a price where our customers do not need purchase incentive. This means that we need several units per customer in the parcel delivery area, as there 3-4 large operators which are compatible with our solution. Each of which could purchase 30-100 units per year to add to their fleet. This is why we wish the program to be generous in terms of maximal support per client, as there are very few of them that can place such large orders.

Once we reach the few hundreds of units, we can reduce our margins, lower our purchase cost and optimize our production in such a way that we can drastically reduce our selling price. We expect to sell our solution almost half the price of our introduction price, by 2020, if we reach our production volume targets. Limiting the support to 1 or 2 million would limit the sales to about 15 or 30 units per customer, making it difficult to reach 200 units per year and therefore leaving the selling price relatively high.

Therefore, we recommend:

1) that approved electric vehicle conversion systems are supported by the program;
2) the maximum contribution from the program to one operator to reach at least 5 M$;
3) to provide long term vision for the program, for 2021 and up to reduce the risk for the operators and companies behind the technologies.

Thank you for your concern.

[Original Comment ID: 211051]