Chase Barber

Electrifying trucking, especially heavy-duty trucking, is plagued by fundamental problems. Batteries are not big enough, and they are too weighty for long distance and heavy loads. But Mr. Barber believed that heavy-duty trucking could not be left behind. Trucking is responsible for 10.5 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, the majority from heavy-duty trucks. And the business costs of gasoline are substantial. In forestry, transportation is the most fuel-consuming element of the wood supply chain, eating up around 50 per cent of total fuel usage. Driven by a grassroots knowledge of the challenges facing their industry, in 2019 Mr. Barber and his business partner, Eric Little, launched Edison Motors out of a tiny town two hours inland from Vancouver in Merritt, B.C. “We said, if we’re gonna do this, if we want our truck, we’re gonna have to build our own. And that’s what we did.” …The truck is not, however, fully electric. It is a hybrid.