Gardewine’s grant

On the cost front, Winnipeg-based Gardewine recently got some help in the form of a $150,000 grant from the provincial government to deploy an electric shunt truck. The funding, announced in October, was part of a $1-million grant program offered from the province’s Conservation and Climate Fund.

The company took delivery of a LoneStar SV tractor, which is charged using a Terra 94/124/884 CC dual outlet CCS charger with cable management system. The unit is expected to run up to 20 hours a day, five days a week and will be “opportunity charged” when the driver takes breaks.

The charger was installed outdoors, but Gardewine president and chief operating officer Darin Downey told Today’s Trucking he’s not concerned about the extreme cold weather Winnipeg experiences much of the year.

“It’s not the charger that needs to be inside,” Downey said, noting it’s the truck-mounted batteries that are sensitive to the cold. “We will run this 20 hours a day so it won’t be parked for long periods of time.”

Downey said the truck’s arrival created a lot of excitement at the company.

“Everyone is keen to get into this thing,” added Dan LaCasse, Gardewine’s director of maintenance.

The deployment of the electric shunt truck comes on the heels of additional investments by Gardewine in electric forklifts, and battery-powered parcel delivery trucks are to arrive next year.