The founder and chief executive of USA-based WrightSpeed which is currently converting the 60-strong Wellington trolleybus fleet into range-extended electric vehicles is a keynote speaker at the Morgo conference in September.
California-based Kiwi Ian Wright will speak to the entrepreneurial conference about his journey to electrify not only the NZ Bus fleet with Wrightspeeds turbine-range extending electric motor technology but also that of the US-based FedEx urban delivery fleet as well as The Ratto Groups Californian fleet of rubbish collection trucks.
Wright will also clock up some more airpoints at the end of October when he returns again to New Zealand as a keynote speaker for the Road Transport Forum Conference at Bay Park, Mount Maunganui.
The Kiwi entrepreneur is focussing on electrification of heavy urban vehicles which he says makes more economic sense than the electrification of passenger vehicles.
“When the automotive world looked to develop electric vehicle solutions to save fossil fuels, the manufacturers asked the wrong question,” says Wright.
“They didn’t ask, how can we save the most fuel per vehicle per year?” he says.
A former co-founder of Tesla, Wright, however, saw an opportunity to create his start-up company to build such a solution, as it literally and quite noisily drove past him one day.
He started building an electric drive system for delivery trucks, and then someone approached him with an even bigger challenge, refuse trucks.
Wright told DIESELtalk in November 2015 that more than 110,000 Class 8 garbage trucks noisily clank around the city and suburban streets of the USA, each consuming diesel at the rate of 2.6 miles per gallon (108L/100km).
EV pioneer switches onto trucks
WrightSpeed unveiled it most recent development in June at the Waste Expo in Las Vegas, USA, where the company installed it’s “The Route” powertrain within a Mack LR rubbish-truck.
According to BusinessDesk, Wright is hoping for a deal with the USA’s largest vocational rubbish truck maker to use “The Route” in its manufacturing operation.
EROAD ceo Steven Newman is another of the key speakers to the Morgo function which is taking place in Queenstown on September 1 and 2.
This 2016 Morgo conference marks the second occasion that Wright will speak at the gathering.
According to BusinessDesk, when speaking at the Morgo conference three years ago, he had just concluded successful trials of WrightSpeeds technology with FedEx.
