It’s highly unusual for a cover feature to showcase a truck that’s barely turned a wheel in operation. However, given the three Scania 25Ps arrived when we were meeting with NZ Post to construct this story, not including them wouldn’t have done justice to what the company is trying to achieve. Yes, it’s early days, and that means there’s still a lot of fine-tuning going on around processes, drivers and schedules, but the Scanias were straight to work, and so we thought we’d give them a week to settle in and come back to check them out.

Once everything is fully set up and ironed out, six drivers will double-shift the three trucks. Greg Carley of Greg Carley Transport is contracted to manage the operation of the Scanias for NZ Post. He’s worked for NZ Post for 41 years and started operating Post trucks 26 years ago. “I’ve seen some changes along the way!” he quips as we walk around the 25P.

They are the first dedicated semi-trailer tractor BEVs Scania New Zealand has supplied, and the company claims the 25Ps offer up to 20 hours of operation on a single charge. Fully charged, the truck we sample shows a max range of 223km, and so far, it is averaging 169.6kWh/100km.

They run a dedicated route from the APC up Roscommon Road, alongside the motorway and down Puhinui Road to the airport, a 16km round trip at a max speed of 60km/h. In a full shift, they’ll clock up to 160km – so range or power consumption is not a worry. Greg uses the example of one of the night driver’s runs. “He plugged in to charge at 1am during his break. That added 20% to the batteries. He was only down to around 55%, but it was more of a caution thing. At every decent opportunity the drivers get, they’ll put them on charge.”

Greg says charging has been very easy to adapt to and simple with the YHI chargers positioned at the APC’s customs docks.

While on the subject, this area of the APC is entirely mechanised, with the air cans moving in and out of the facility on a roller floor system. With the trucks butted up to the loading docks, the cans are easily transferred to or from the 10m Fruehauf FBR trailers. These are fitted with the Joloda Hydraroll powered cargo roller floor system, designed for loading and unloading air cargo containers. A series of powered and free rollers pneumatically rise from the floor and the driver moves the cans along with the remote control. Flip-up stoppers safeguard against rollaways and there are cross bars to secure light loads if needed. The trailers hold six 4.4m3 AKE air containers at about a tonne each, or three bigger 11m3 AAY containers of between two and three tonnes.

“So far, I’m really impressed, they’re just a pleasure to drive,” Greg comments as we head along Roscommon Road for the airport. “I had a few hours of training with Alfons [Reitsma – Scania New Zealand senior product engineer, E-Mobility], which I passed on to my drivers. There’s not a lot on it that we need to touch. So far, so good, really.”

The Scania’s 230kW (310hp) of continuous power and 2200Nm torque is more than sufficient for the task. Get up and go is plentiful, with a smooth shift at about 30km/h by the two- speed internal transmission. The two-axle truck, two-axle trailer semi combination is responsive to turn in, almost overly, says Greg.

“With the distance between the rear wheels of the tractor unit and the front of the trailer unit, it doesn’t take much of a spin on the wheel to turn the trailer. Especially reversing … it’s taken a bit of getting used to, and particularly, because the steering is so light. Nice and easy is the way!” he says.

“The trucks are going well and are in full swing with no issues to date – except that Greg struggles to get the drivers out of them!” says Alfons of their operation so far.

SPECIFICATIONS
Scania 25P 4×2 tractor

Special thanks

Wow! This must be one of the most ambitious, complicated, involved cover stories in New Zealand Trucking’s history, and we couldn’t have done it without the gracious input, time and effort of all involved.

From the side of NZ Post, a huge, warm thank you to Sarah Jarvis, Ryan Beale and Conor Keane for your time, sharing insight into your incredible organisation, and helping to coordinate some very busy trucks.

To Neil Dennett, Ramesh Lal and Greg Carley, thank you for making your respective trucks available, and providing critical info about their operation. And to drivers Dev Narayan, Gurdit Dhillon and Ajay Kumar, thank you for having us along for the ride.

Finally, thank you to Grant Doull of Hyundai New Zealand, Matt Gillatt from Keith Andrews Trucks and Alfons Reitsma from Scania New Zealand for sharing insight into these amazing machines and for your ongoing support of New Zealand Trucking Media.