US food delivery company Sysco added ten Freightliner eCascadia electric semi trucks to its Houston, Texas fleet. The trucks bring the company’s electric vehicle fleet to 120 trucks – and the company plans to add hundreds more.

While a number of commercial fleets are still piloting one electric truck, or planning for tens of electric trucks in the next several years, Sysco Corp. signed a letter of intent with Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) to deploy nearly 800 battery electric Class 8 tractors by 2026.

If you think that’s an exciting number, just wait. “Our actual stated public goal is to electrify 35% of our US broad line fleet,” said Marie Robinson, chief supply chain officer, Sysco Corp. “So [the real number is] more like 2,500 electric trucks by 2030.”

Sysco is serous about EVs

“The scale of our EV deployment today is the result of years of planning and tremendous levels of cross-industry collaboration,” adds Dan Purefoy, Sysco’s Chief Supply Chain Officer and someone who has very likely studied the economic impacts of the company’s existing 120 electric vehicle fleet over the last few years.

Electrek’s Take

While it’s not entirely clear which electric trucks will join the 800 eCascadias in that final 2500 number, Sysco already seems to have taken delivery of at least one Tesla Semi. It’s worth noting, too, that at the original unveiling of Tesla Semi in 2017, Sysco announced that it had reserved 50 trucks from Tesla.

That just leaves 1,650 electric semi trucks to go!

SOURCES | IMAGES: Electrive, Fleet Equipment Magazine, and Sysco.