Toll Group energizes deliveries with electric vehicle

The Smith Electric vehicle is Australia's first 100% electric truck.

Justin Loiseau

Justin Loiseau hails from the great united state of North Carolina, where he started his first business at the ripe age of five: melting crayons into candles. With the infamous Crayola Crash of 1994, Justin moved on to study economics and environmental studies as a Morehead-Cain Scholar at the University of North Carolina. He has worked in a variety of sectors across the globe, from management consulting to the United Nations, and once spent three months examining invasive snails in Vietnam. Justin discovered The Motley Fool in 2012 and it’s been love ever since. Creativity, contrarianism, kerfuffling… what more could one want? When he’s not playing the Fool, you can find Justin at the University of Auckland, where he is pursuing a Masters in Economics as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. Justin finds biogas digesters fascinating and can unicycle a mile in seven minutes.

Published September 3, 2013 6:30 am AEST

It's no Tesla Roadster, but Toll Group's (ASX: TOL) latest delivery truck packs a 10-tonne punch powered entirely on electricity. Unveiled today, the Smith Electric vehicle is Australia's first 100% electric truck, and will be used by Toll for Brisbane parcel pick-ups and deliveries.

Source: Toll Group

Far from a company-wide makeover, the truck will be on its own for the next three months as Toll analyses its operational costs. Toll has tinkered with alternative transportation energies before, and the results of this trial run could pave the way for bigger changes in the years to come.

Speaking at the truck's unveiling today, Environment and Energy General Manager Nick Prescott said "It is a shining example of the sorts of things we're doing as part of our broader Smarter Green environmental program, which looks at the use of smarter fuels such as biodiesels, compressed natural gas and electric vehicles, but only when it makes operational and economic sense to do so."

Foolish takeaway

Toll's latest pilot project is far from a market mover – but it is a reminder that logistics companies need to innovate to stay ahead of competition. Natural gas fleets are making headway across the globe, and battery technology is improving at such a rate that local electric delivery fleets might be cost competitive sooner than we think. Toll's trial gets my thumbs up for trying something new – but it's not going to make or break this stock.

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Motley Fool contributor Justin Loiseau owns shares of Tesla Motors. You can follow him on Twitter @TMFJLo.

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