MOORESVILLE, N.C. and ORTLAND, Ore. — In a NASCAR first, Team Penske on Sunday used the fully-electric Freightliner eCascadia semi-truck to pull a full-sized Team Penske racecar hauler from Ontario, California, to Los Angeles.
Austin Cindric and the No. 2 Freightliner eCascadia Ford team kicked off the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season on Sunday with the inaugural running of The Clash, an exhibition run inside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on a specially designed and constructed quarter-mile track inside the iconic venue.
The eCascadia remained on display throughout race weekend to give fans a firsthand look at the battery-electric truck.
“Team Penske has been evolving with Freightliner since 1984,” Team Penske Transportation Director Chris Yoder said.
Yoder oversees 20 Freightliner trucks at the team’s Mooresville, North Carolina, headquarters and piloted the eCascadia during the historic drive.
“I think it’s safe to say we’ve operated every model road tractor Freightliner has produced since 1984,” Yoder said. “Yesterday’s trip with the eCascadia will mark the pinnacle of our partnership. Together we’ve innovated and developed on the ground floor and this trip is symbolic of the next journey we plan to take together, a carbon-neutral future with a focus on sustainability.”
“At Freightliner, we’re driven to deliver purposeful innovation for our customers and there’s a tremendous sense of pride to see the innovative all-electric Freightliner eCascadia used by our longstanding partners at Team Penske to make racing history,” Mary Aufdemberg, general manager, product strategy and market development at DTNA, said. “We look forward to cheering them on this weekend.”
The eCascadia used by Team Penske is part of the Freightliner Electric Innovation Fleet, which includes 20 battery-electric trucks in operation by PTL and its customers. The fleet began operation in 2019 and was supported by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD), which focuses on improving air quality in the South Coast Basin of Southern California and partially funded the project.
“We’re committed to leading our industry in the transition to commercial electric vehicles and providing increasingly more sustainable truck options to our customers,” Art Vallely, president of Penske Truck Leasing, said. “We continue to test new and innovative vehicles in our fleet, and we have been impressed with the performance of these Freightliner vehicles.”
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