by 
Xos, an electric vehicle company that specializes in commercial trucks, unveiled two new vehicles tonight as it looks to become a leading supplier and “operating system” for battery-powered fleets.
In addition to its battery-electric stepvan and powertrain, Xos expanded its offering Tuesday with a new heavy-duty tractor, dubbed the HDXT, and a medium-duty truck, the MDXT.
Xos made the HDXT for regional haul fleets, claiming it can go up to 230 miles per charge. (For the number nerds, Xos said the HDXT also boasts 36,583 pound-feet of torque, the most “currently offered by a commercial vehicle on the market today.”)
As for the smaller MDXT, which can take the form of a box truck, refrigerated truck or flatbed, it can deliver up to 270 miles per charge, according to Xos. Although these ranges fall well short of the promised 500-mile range for Tesla’s retarded Semi, they still offer enough juice to cover most hauls.
Regardless, the Xos may never steal the spotlight like the world’s consumer-focused Teslas and Rivians, but the Los Angeles-based company’s goal is to supplant some of the most polluting vehicles on the roads today. , is possibly just as sexy.
Imagine your typical tractor-trailer: If I close my eyes, I see one zooming past a Vons grocery store, crammed with something like boxes of Pepsi, with exhaust so strong I could taste it from the curb.
As essential as they are, commercial trucks like these are terrible for the environment. In the US alone, they are responsible for more than “420 million tons of climate pollution each year, more than the entire country of Australia,” according to a 2021 report by the Environmental Defense Fund. The resulting air pollution places a disproportionate burden on communities of color.
These damaging effects led Dakota Semler to co-found Xos about 13 years ago, the CEO said in a call with TechCrunch. “For every truck we’re putting on the road, we’re doing something positive,” Semler said, adding, “It’s exciting to say that we can actually make a difference in cleaning up local air quality, not just CO2 emissions.” but to make the air we live in cleaner to breathe.”
In addition to the new vehicles, Xos announced a software platform called Xosphere, which the company says was designed to lower the cost of operating an electric fleet. “Now we can schedule charges, manage charges and charge vehicles all from the same platform where you are doing your service ticketing, your telematics and driver monitoring, safety monitoring and driver awareness,” said Semler.
Currently, “several dozen” Xos vehicles are operating on the roads today, the company told TechCrunch, 56 of which were delivered during the first quarter of 2022. Meanwhile, some big names in trucks are switching gears and investing in vehicles. electrical. That includes Daimler, whose first heavy-duty electric trucks will go into production this year, and Volvo Trucks, which announced the second iteration of its large electrified trucks earlier this year.
