Product1 publisher2 min readPublished
Windrose builds a 70 kW power take-off into its electric axle to run trailer ramps
Car haulers work their ramps and racks off the engine. Windrose says its electric axle can hand over 70 kW instead, though it has not published the continuous rating or the energy per cycle a fleet planner would have to price.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- Windrose Technology says its electric power take-off can deliver up to 70 kW from an electric semi-truck, covering the job a diesel engine's mechanical PTO does on a conventional tractor.
- The unit is roughly the size of an iPad, runs off the truck's 800-volt high-voltage platform, and is integrated directly into Windrose's own electric axle rather than sold as a standalone system.
- Chief executive Wen Han says the company built it after failing to find any available EPTO suitable for powering the ramps and racks that vehicle transport trailers require.
- Windrose has not disclosed the continuous power rating, weight, efficiency, operating duration or battery consumption, which leaves 70 kW standing as a maximum output figure.
- Ken North, an emerging technologies consultant for the North American Council for Freight Efficiency, said an EPTO could make an electric highway truck a more versatile platform.
Compiled by The Product DeskSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- capability A car hauler that powers its own ramps no longer needs a diesel donor unit on the trailer, which is the gap between an electric tractor that moves vehicles and one that can also load them.
- decision Anyone pricing an electric car hauler has to book auxiliary energy against range, and with no continuous rating published that line is an estimate the buyer makes on the vendor's behalf.
- exposure Putting auxiliary power inside the drivetrain moves duty-cycle and warranty arguments onto the truck maker, where body builders previously answered for what their equipment drew.
A diesel car hauler works its deck with the engine turning, because that is where the hydraulic power comes from [2]. Remove the engine and someone has to answer for the ramps, and on a battery truck the answer comes out of the pack [10].
The published figure is a ceiling. Held flat out for a full hour, 70 kW is 70 kWh gone from the battery [1], and on an 800-volt bus it draws 87.5 amps [2]. Nobody works a deck flat out for an hour, which is exactly why the useful number is energy per load cycle multiplied by cycles per shift. Getting to that number requires the continuous rating, and Windrose has not given one [6].
Here is what a spec call tends to assume: auxiliary draw is rounding error against a long highway leg. Here is what the work actually looks like: the ramps and racks [4] get moved at every pickup and every drop, always with the truck stationary, and every one of those movements comes off the miles left to the next terminal. Diesel hid that accounting inside the fuel gauge. The fleet that can answer the question is the one that logs a week of deck movements and multiplies, and it cannot start until the vendor supplies the per-cycle energy.
Worth separating the thing being pitched from the thing being done. Windrose built the unit into its own axle [3], so the capability travels with a Windrose truck rather than existing as a part a body builder can specify on another maker's tractor. The dump bodies, hydraulic pumps, cranes, cherry pickers and plows that still take power straight off a drivetrain [9] each draw differently from a ramp, so the more versatile platform that the NACFE consultant describes [7] is claimed once and then earned one application at a time.
The sorting question is duration, not peak. Equipment that pulls hard for seconds at a time is well served by a maximum, and 70 kW is a generous one [1]. Equipment that pulls steadily for hours, plowing being the obvious case [9], is a pack-size and range problem, and the spec that settles it is the one still missing [6]. The row worth adding to a truck spec sheet has four cells: kilowatts continuous, minutes under load per shift, kilowatt hours per shift, and miles of range surrendered. A supplier who can fill those in is selling a component; one who quotes only the ceiling is quoting a ceiling.
What to watch
- Whether Windrose publishes a continuous kW rating and an energy-per-load-cycle figure rather than the 70 kW peak.
- Whether any e-axle supplier offers an electric PTO a body builder can specify on another maker's tractor.
- Whether the first electric car-hauler operators report how much range per shift the auxiliary draw takes.