America’s First Electric Fire Truck Is On the Job in Los Angeles

Earlier this yr, firefighters in Los Angeles proudly confirmed off their gleaming new truck. Like its predecessors, the truck was vibrant purple and festooned with chrome accents and firefighting paraphernalia. But in contrast to the Los Angeles Fire Department’s different automobiles, this one had one thing particular hiding beneath all these instruments. This model new truck, constructed by Austrian producer Rosenbauer, wasn’t your conventional diesel-powered machine. Instead, this one was lauded as “America’s first electric fire truck” — although it’s outfitted with a BMW-sourced diesel engine to high up the batteries in the event that they run low.

That makes this a hybrid hearth truck, not a pure EV, however that’s nonetheless a welcome growth on the planet of firefighting right here within the States. The Rosenbauer machine has been in service with the LAFD since May, and crews have been getting accustomed to the brand new rig.

“Anything new is going to be met with skepticism,” Richard Fields, deputy chief of the Los Angeles City Fire Department, instructed Jalopnik. “Most of the skepticism that we have is kind of that uninformed assumption. It’s like, ‘how is it possibly going to work if we have an electric vehicle? It can’t run forever.’”

That’s true. The new hearth truck from Rosenbauer has a restricted provide of electrical energy in its battery packs. And that provide has to energy the traction motors that transfer the truck in addition to the water pumps and all the opposite important firefighting gear on board.

Once these batteries run down, the diesel-powered vary extender kicks in mechanically. The result’s a truck that may meet the cruel calls for of firefighting whereas reducing down on emissions and gas prices. As such, it options some fairly nifty improvements in its powertrain, cab design and general performance.

“It’s just different,” explains Fields.

So, How Do You Power an Electric Fire Truck?

Rosenbauer International has made a reputation for itself creating firefighting equipment for the previous 156 years. For the RTX, Rosenbauer partnered with Volvo to develop the powertrain, then set to work getting ready it for the wants of fireside departments world wide.

“We started a project in 2018, and that was not necessarily about creating a product for Rosenbauer,” Paul Jansson, program director for electromobility at Volvo Penta, instructed Jalopnik. Instead, the hassle was about creating an environment friendly platform that would cater to Volvo Penta’s marine and industrial purchasers.

But then, Rosenbauer approached Volvo Penta to collaborate on a powertrain for its new hybrid firetruck. The deal tasked Volvo with making a hybrid drivetrain that Rosenbauer may then design a brand new sort of truck round.

“We basically had to tailor that solution to their needs,” says Jansson. “So we took the platform and developed it specifically for Rosenbauer, because they were the first customer that we had.”

The ensuing powertrain incorporates 4 electrical motors, two battery packs and that diesel vary extender. Two of the motors are for propulsion, one sitting on every axle to energy the entrance and rear wheels, giving the RTX four-wheel-drive. A 3rd motor powers the on-board water pump, and the fourth is linked to the vary extender to generate electrical energy.

“The energy storage solution, or the batteries, are kind of flexible and modular. One is laying down horizontally and one is standing up. That was something that Volvo Penta had to develop to meet the needs of this very compact vehicle,” Jansson mentioned.

That battery orientation allowed Rosenbauer to suit extra shelving into the truck to retailer important firefighting equipment, and left area for a water tank.

How Does it Differ From a Regular Fire Truck?

“It’s ergonomically far more advanced,” Fields says of the hybrid truck. “They designed the compartments and how the tools are laid out based on the firefighter expending the least amount of energy. We don’t use a lot of compartment space on our normal engines and everything is on a flat shelf. This vehicle maximizes that space.”

The Rosenbauer truck has the identical flat-front “cab-over-engine” design you’d see on most standard hearth vans, however the absence of an enormous diesel engine permits the truck to suit all the mandatory firefighting gear in a extra compact footprint. This, once more, improves usability for firefighters. “Because there is no engine that starts from the front, that eliminates all of that obstruction that a normal engine has,” Fields says. “Traditionally, the entire cab has been designed around the engine being up front and the transmission and all of that. Now that is gone, so you get all of that space back and you can step in and stand up like you would in a motorhome.”

Fields additionally cites different improvements within the truck, like the flexibility to boost and decrease the journey peak from 7” as much as 19”, one thing not discovered on many conventional hearth vans.

All because of this the firefighters in LA are capable of get in and get on with their jobs shortly. From the standpoint of preventing fires, there hasn’t been a lot adaptation required to make use of the truck. It’s solely when it’s time to refuel that firefighters have needed to swap up their routine.

The truck has a complete of 132 kWh value of battery to replenish. With a quick-charging 150-kW plug, the truck might be topped up from 50 to 80 p.c in simply quarter-hour. At Station 82 in LA, the place the primary RTX within the U.S. is predicated, firefighters plug the truck right into a port like this and may cost a half-empty battery again to full in 30 to 45 minutes.

But not each location has such fast-charging gear, and a top-up at a daily 120-volt energy outlet would depart you with a really lengthy wait. In an emergency scenario, lengthy waits aren’t one thing you need to encounter.

To keep away from this, Volvo and Rosenbauer inbuilt a diesel-powered vary extender that may begin as much as hold the motor and pumps working when the battery stage drops. This vary extender takes the type of a 3.0-liter twin-turbo diesel straight-six from BMW. The B57 engine that Rosenbauer makes use of within the RTX is the very same unit that BMW installs in vehicles comparable to the 540d xDrive and the 740Ld xDrive.

“As an emergency vehicle, they couldn’t say ‘we can’t put out this next fire as we have no more energy,’” Jansson mentioned. “So, that is why we have to have the range extender in there.”

According to Rosenbauer, the vary extender begins up each time the batteries drop beneath 20 p.c cost. The firm says the diesel engine can recharge the truck in as little as 45 minutes. Depending on circumstances, a fully-charged battery can hold the RTX preventing fires for 4 to 6 hours.

And whereas that vary extender does pump out exhaust fumes when it’s working, it does so for a a lot shorter time period in comparison with a standard hearth truck. Fields and the LAFD had been capable of run the truck and its pumps for “about 16 hours straight” whereas testing the RTX, utilizing lower than a gallon of diesel gas within the course of.

At current, Fields is hesitant to debate the truck’s effectivity any additional, because the LAFD continues to be attending to grips with the brand new machine’s capabilities. But to get an thought, we will look to Europe: Jansson has been working intently with the Berlin hearth division, which has been working an RTX across the metropolis for a few years now.

In the German capital, Jansson mentioned that firefighters responded to 95 p.c of emergency calls on pure electrical energy, which is mighty spectacular.

“We are always looking for new technology and Rosenbauer is innovative and wants to have more power, more energy,” says Jansson. “One of the questions is, could we get rid of the range extender? And the answer is yes, quite simply. You could get rid of it now if you want to.”

But clearly, having the security web of the diesel generator ensures that the truck can hold working to emergencies time and again.

How Has it Fared on the Streets of LA thus far?

That all sounds very promising for our electrical future. But the LAFD’s expertise with the battery-powered truck hasn’t been seamless. Shortly after getting into service, the truck hit the headlines after a leak was present in one in every of its water tanks.

“We were very careful about the design of this vehicle as Rosenbauer are not used to the U.S. requirements, their other trucks are in Germany,” says Fields. “So they had to put different lights and different sirens on the truck. And, the way most of the hydrant systems in Europe work is different, they are not under pressure.”

This was one thing that was initially missed within the rollout of LA’s hearth truck. American hydrants push pressurized water into a fireplace truck’s tanks, so LAFD crews had been inadvertently over-pressurizing the water tank once they stuffed it.

“But little things like that are going to come while putting it through its paces,” provides Fields.

Volvo Penta and Rosenbauer needed to make different adjustments to permit the truck to run on U.S. roads as properly. The American truck makes use of a special charging system in comparison with its European counterparts, as a result of increased voltage utilized in grids throughout the pond. The truck’s HVAC system additionally wanted to be altered to run on a special refrigerant, because the compound utilized in America was deserted in Europe again in 1995. Tweaks like this, Jansson says, induced “nightmares” for engineers at occasions.

Now that the creases are being ironed out, the LAFD is hitting the streets with the RTX. And thus far, it appears like crews have had no drawback adapting to the brand new engine. But, Fields warns that the division gained’t know for certain if the truck is a step up over its internal-combustion-powered counterparts till issues begin going incorrect.

“It is still a machine, and it is going to break, it is going to fail,” he says.

And What About the Costs That Come With an Electric Truck?

It’s not simply the efficiency of the automobile being assessed by the LAFD. Fields additionally has to think about the upkeep and working prices of the automobile earlier than absolutely committing to a battery-powered future.

Other than the preliminary buy, the most important value of any EV comes with the battery packs. In the Rosenbauer truck, these are predicted to lose between two and 5 p.c of their efficiency every year, in line with Fields.

“If that stays true, then we’re looking at replacing the battery every 10 years or more,” Fields mentioned. “Other than replacing tires and brakes, there really are no other mechanical things that we have to replace on the vehicle.”

With its present lineup of fireside preventing automobiles, Fields says the common lifespan of an LAFD truck sits someplace between 10 and 15 years. And whereas a brand new battery pack may cost a little lots, Fields is certain that the brand new electrical truck will work out higher for taxpayers than its diesel-powered counterparts over the identical interval.

“We’re replacing all kinds of things that go wrong with a normal combustion engine,” Fields explains. “We’re replacing an entire head or a transmission — we do a lot of repairs over the life of our normal engines. So while the vehicle itself costs more, we are anticipating finding that saving in the maintenance side of it.”

And that’s excellent news for the opposite hearth departments throughout the nation that wish to Los Angeles for steering.

“Most fire departments in the country either copy or closely follow what LA city fire department does,” says Fields. “So people have put in orders and are looking to get one for themselves, and that is based on what LA city says about this rig.”

It’s due to this that LAFD is in fixed communication with Rosenbauer to maintain the truck working easily. And thus far, Fields appears impressed. So a lot so that he’s satisfied the squad may have extra EVs in its fleet quickly.

“Absolutely, for sure,” he says. “We definitely will, and I will say that this innovation is going to force the rest of the industry to speed up their work.”