Specialty vehicle manufacturer The Shyft Group recently announced plans to bring its own Class 3 all-electric chassis platform to market to serve a wide range of medium-duty trucks. This includes commercial trucks, recreational vehicles, passenger buses, and last-mile delivery fleets.
The Shyft Group is a North American vehicle manufacturer that also focuses on assembly, particularly for commercial, retail, and specialty service vehicles. The company itself is divided into two core entities: Shyft Fleet Vehicles & Services and Shyft Specialty Vehicles. Shyft currently employs nearly 3,000 people across 10 US states and Mexico.
These facilities provide regional manufacturing to North America for a full product lineup from Class 1 to Class 7 purpose-built vehicles. With The Shyft Group’s latest announcement, it will add a fully modular, medium-duty platform for customers beginning next year.
The Shyft Group all-electric chassis platform
According to the official press release from The Shyft Group, the electric platform was designed by Shyft Innovations, the company’s research and development team. The EV-powered chassis will feature both customizable length and wheelbase, allowing it to be modified to fit a variety of vehicle types for customers.
The chassis’ modular design will also be able to handle multiple Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) classifications, allowing the manufacturer to produce electrified medium-duty vehicles for last-mile delivery, mass transit, as well as recreational vehicles. Daryl Adams, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Shyft Group, elaborates:
We’ve listened closely to our customers and to the industry at large to design this EV chassis to address an unmet need in the specialty vehicles market. We gained valuable insight from our long-term customer relationships to develop an EV chassis that will help all customers meet green mandates head-on. With a rich history in chassis engineering, body builders trust our deep domain expertise and our ability to deliver a reliable purpose-built EV platform that will deliver inherent efficiencies that positively impact the bottom line for fleet customers and owner operators alike.
Other details of the capacity and range of the pending platform remain unknown at this point, especially since the agnostic design allows for custom modularity. Customers of the Shyft Group are expected to see prototypes of the Class 3 EV platform for route testing in early 2022, and full production is expected to begin mid-2023.
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Author: Scooter Doll
Source: Electrek
