E-Mobility Engineering 014 l InoBat Auto dossier l In Conversation: Brandon Fisher l Battery monitoring focus l Supercapacitor applications insight l Green-G ecarry digest l Lithium-sulphur batteries insight l Cell-to-pack batteries focus

Narrow margins Rory Jackson investigates this custom-built EV for collecting refuse in the narrow streets of older towns and cities T he dangers of excess CO 2 , NO X and other greenhouse gases from refuse and freight trucks in populated urban centres makes it imperative to electrify such traditionally diesel-hungry vehicles. This has spurred companies such as Irizar ( EME 10, Summer 2021) and The Lion Electric Company ( EME 5, Winter 2019) to tackle the challenges of engineering large waste collection EVs to provide cleaner refuse collection services. Such vehicles are well-suited to wherever roads are wide and spacious, but for many older and hence narrower streets in urban areas around the world, a more compact and nimble EV solution makes far more sense. It therefore seems natural that an Italian company would devise a light commercial truck that is tailored to duties such as refuse collection from the country’s countless historical urban beauty spots. That truck is the ecarry, designed and sold by Green-G, a subsidiary of Goriziane E&C. Based in Villesse in north-east Italy, it was founded originally to provide maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services for military vehicles, but later started providing technical services and developing specialised machinery for the oil & gas industry. Initial investments for Green-G were made in 2018 by members of Goriziane, who saw that the company’s accumulated knowledge and skills in MRO r&d could be combined to form a new OEM developing specialised vehicles. Its first EV, the ecarry, is now in series production, and its development has been spearheaded by Massimo Aretino, the company’s r&d manager. Design philosophy He says, “At the time we started the first concept development, in the second half of 2018, there was no clear picture of what light commercial EVs were supposed to look like in the future. “Tesla was constructing EVs on a 350 V system, certainly, but there were also a lot of smaller vehicles running on 96 V. So from the outset we looked intensively at the voltage of our powertrain, because everything – every component, every connection, packaging and spacing – follows from the voltage level you pick for this kind of vehicle.” Early concept r&d therefore focused as much on the most available voltage components as on the dimensions of the EV, in order to create a highly specialised light commercial vehicle for urban sanitation and logistics. Thus Green-G wanted to strike the right balance between cost-effectiveness, efficiency and user-friendliness. “We also carried out a large but rough initial study with the kinds of sanitation companies and authorities who use vehicles like the ecarry every day, and that largely determined the dimensions of the vehicle as well as the appropriate length of its working day,” Aretino says. The ecarry is therefore 1.59 m wide, 5.64 m long and 1.93 m tall, with a ;he ecarry began de]elopment in and is now certified to N1 and R100 standards (Images courtesy of Green-G) 50 Summer 2022 | E-Mobility Engineering