Xos Trucks is a heavy duty electric vehicle startup founded in 2016 in Los Angeles, California. Until recently, it electrified existing trucks and also sold its own BEV delivery van (known as a step van), but now it has also revealed a larger medium- and heavy-duty truck, shown both as a semi tractor and as a delivery truck.
The semi is called Xos HDXT, a class 8 electric tractor, while the box version, available as either a Class 6 or Class 7 medium-duty truck, is known as MDXT. The semi is rated to tow a payload of up to 56,000 pounds and it has 798 horsepower, while range is rated at between 110 and 230 miles on one charge depending on payload and other factors.
Gallery: Xos HDXT and MDXT
The manufacturer says you can charge the HDXT at 350 kW, so one and a half hours are enough for a full charge, at least in theory. Propulsion is provided by Allison e-axles from the new eGen dual-motor series, either one 100D for the 4x2 model and two 100S axles for the 6x4 version.
The MDXT delivery variant is less powerful, with a rating of 350 horsepower, but it does offer more range, between 130 and 270 miles. Maximum payload is 20,000 pounds and the gross vehicle weight rating (basically its total weight including payload) is 33,000 pounds. Power ratings range from 401 to 469 horsepower and charging is done at a slower rate, 150 kW maximum, via a CCS connector.
Xos is a company that will mostly target fleet customers and is preparing its portfolio for the time when emissions regulations will force companies to renew their fleet and go for pure-electric vans and trucks. According to the company’s CEO, Dakota Semler,
The next phase is helping fleets scale zero-emissions vehicles across their entire operations. We’ve already started to pave the way for the future we’ve envisioned.
We are building the fleet of the future. The new vehicle platforms go farther, last longer and cost less for all types of fleets. We will continue to bring innovative fleet solutions to market in an effort to provide customers with safer, more sustainable and more cost-efficient products.
Now even though Xos has managed to show its first medium- and heavy-duty electric trucks quite quickly, ahead of most established players, they still have the challenge of building them. And once the establishment does produce its own offerings, the segment will become much more competitive than it is right now.
One of the unique features that Xos hopes will tilt the balance in its favor is what it calls the Xosphere. It’s basically a piece of software designed for vehicle fleet management, offering tools that tell managers what vehicles are doing, what they’ve done, what their stats are and when they will require maintenance.
According to Giordano Sordoni, the COO of Xos,
We designed the Xosphere to be ridiculously intuitive. You shouldn’t need a background in computer science to access powerful insights to your fleet.
Apparently, Xosphere is already being successfully used by a manufacturer of uniforms and protective clothing, UniFirst, from Wilmington, Massachusetts, which already operates Xos electric vans. According to Xos, it already has orders for a few dozen of its newly unveiled trucks and it expects demand to keep going up; it's also began taking orders for the electric step van last year.
