Business Climate: Merritt-based Edison Motors is powering a push toward cleaner semi trucks

Chace Barber and Eric Little were driving a 1969 Kenworth truck from the Yukon to Merritt when they started hatching a plan.

It was 2019, and the two loggers were on their way home from a remote community where they had installed a diesel generator and battery bank that allowed a small First Nation to drastically reduce its diesel usage during peak times. With no radio in the vintage semi, they got to talking.

“We said, ‘Hold on, this truck is pretty similar to a power grid. What if we made it a hybrid, like we just did with that community?” remembers Barber. The idea would work especially well in British Columbia, they concluded, because logging trucks typically go uphill empty and downhill fully loaded.

“The battery could meet the peak power demand because it takes a ton of power to get a truck moving off a red light, and a ton of power to climb a hill. But your average power when you’re coasting isn’t that bad,” explains Barber. “So we spent the whole drive talking about how we would do it, and by the end we were like, ‘Let’s do it.’”

The pair had already put $25,000 down on a reservation for a Tesla Semi, but after several years of radio silence from the Elon Musk-led automaker, Barber asked for a refund. “I said, ‘Give me the money back. I’ll start my own,’” he remembers with a laugh. “That’s why we called the company Edison. Our tagline was ‘Stealing Tesla’s Idea.’”

Barber and Little started posting about their plans on social media and, before long, more than 130 professionals—among them experts in electrical, engineering and mechanics—had come forward to help out.

“We did the whole thing in a tent in my parents’ backyard for the first few trucks. We got pizza and beer and our buddies showed up and we just started pulling wrenches,” remembers Barber who, along with his parents, is based in Merritt. “We failed at some things but we got a few right.”

Within the first year, Edison had its first proof-of-concept truck—a retrofit on an old logging truck the pair presented at Brigade Days in Hope. They also launched a crowdfunding campaign that raised $1.5 -million in less than a week. With those funds, the company built its first truck from the frame rails up, with electric axles, bigger batteries and its own control software. Then came the testing phase. Says Barber, “You break it in every way you could possibly imagine, fix it, then send it off for more breaking.”

After submitting “mountains and mountains of paperwork,” Edison passed all inspections and got its first VIN number assigned in March of this year, making it the first Canadian-made hybrid semi on the market.

A typical logging truck uses 500 to 600 litres of diesel fuel per day, says Barber, and Edison’s truck uses approximately half of that—saving roughly $500 a day, or $15,000 a month. And while it doesn’t meet the zero-emission mark, it offers the range and torque required by long-haul truckers.

It also looks the part, which Barber says is key for truckers who are reluctant to enter the EV market. “A lot of those guys don’t want electric because they don’t want the really ugly plastic trucks. Loggers don’t want a truck that looks like the Tesla Semi,” he says. “They want the big hood, the fenders, the higher ground clearance for going into the bush, that steel bumper on the front because they’re in the bush. Nobody’s delivering electric trucks like that.”

Dave Earle, president and CEO of the BC Trucking Association, says EV technology is rapidly improving, but because of the weight of heavy-duty trucks and their loads, as well as the need to keep them running reliably for long stretches and the lack of charging infrastructure, the industry has a long way to go before it reaches widespread adoption. Cost is also a major factor, with the few available electric and hydrogen fuel-cell trucks priced at double or triple their diesel equivalents.

“It is a lot more money—not a little bit, a lot,” says Earle. “And that’s okay, because we’re in that ‘Get it, try it, break it, learn, fix it, try it, break it, learn, fix it’ iterative stage. It’s going to get cheaper. It’s going to get more reliable. But right now, we’re just not there.”

Whereas electric car adoption has skyrocketed in B.C.—nearly a quarter of new car sales are now EVs—only a few dozen of B.C.’s 65,000 trucks are electric or hybrid. But Edison is changing the game, says Earle.

“Rather than it being pie-in-the-sky, powder-puff junk from China and America, this is local stuff. This is heavy, heavy, heavy-duty stuff. They’re built well. And it changes the conversation in the industry,” he says. “That’s why I just think what they’re doing is so brilliant.”

It’s also incredibly challenging—but Barber says Edison’s biggest hurdle has nothing to do with engines or axles or even regulatory red tape: it’s B.C.’s soaring real estate values. The company has continued to operate on Barber’s parents’ property, but as business kicks into high gear, its founders know that a proper shop is needed.

In Merritt, however, real estate investors have pushed prices out of Edison’s reach. “Right now there are properties for sale, but they’re like two acres of land for $1.8 million dollars,” says Barber.

As a result, the founders have been considering moves to locations from Terrace to Arizona, with officials offering incentives from no-cost land to an old Hayes truck plant.

For now, they’re selling trucks, and planning to build 10 within the next year. They’ve also set up a Series A investment round, and are hoping to raise $20 to $25 million to buy land and build a shop. Barber says they’re aiming for slow and steady growth, rather than risking getting too big too fast—but already they’re changing the trajectory of trucking in the province. For Barber, much of the journey is inherently personal.

“I’m a nerd when it comes to semi trucks, and have been since I was a kid,” says Barber, whose great grandfather, grandfather and father drove trucks. He has also restored many classic semis. “I just want to build the best semi truck I can.”