To rapidly advance in more environmentally friendly mobility schemes, says Gottfried, you do not necessarily have to reinvent a vehicle from scratch, which takes at least five years. Rather, Megaflux is working on converting the current fleet of RTP diesel buses to make them electric. “It’s about taking everything that’s great in the industry and introducing a new powertrain, a new way of moving the vehicle, not necessarily reinventing the vehicle.
After validating an electric drive train for buses, the Mexican company signed an agreement this Thursday to ‘electrify’ a first unit. “It’s the culmination of three years of work,” he adds.
Megaflux, a company that initially developed rotating electrical machinery, today offers electrification solutions to companies and governments, ranging from design and supervision to commissioning and maintenance of the units. Among its clients are, in addition to RTP, the multinational Grupo Modelo.
Beer travels in electric trucks
Megaflux and Grupo Modelo began a collaboration 18 months ago with a view to manufacturing the first fully electric vehicle for the distribution of beer in metropolitan areas. After months of research, design and testing, they unveiled in March this year “the world’s first all-electric low-bed truck.”
After the presentation, both firms focused their efforts on developing a vehicle with a range of up to 80 kilometers per charge, contemplating another 20 additional kilometers of backup. This truck, focused on meeting the operational requirements of the brewery, has a “safe height” for operators who are delivering beer or soft drinks and at the same time has a capacity of 12 tons.
The first units are already in pilot tests in Mexico City and the intention is that by the end of this year there will be 10 circulating and distributing drinks.
To electrify Grupo Modelo’s delivery units, the company took an Isuzo chassis as a base and adapted a lithium battery pack developed by Megaflux.
Gottfried details that to develop the lithium battery pack, cells from China are first selected and imported, and then the module design starts in a laboratory located in Iztapalapa, east of CDMX. Finally the assembly is done.