Electric transition for the Mounting competence center of Caussade
As we hear daily in the media, electric vehicles, including trucks, are becoming more and more important on the market. This transition to new technologies is reflected in the needs of assembly centers. This spring, for the first time, the French Mounting Competence Center (MCC) in Caussade installed a PALFINGER hookloader on an electric VOLVO FE chassis on behalf of its French partner "Palfinger France".
Owned by the manufacturer Volvo France, this vehicle equipped with a PHT 20 TEC 5 and a PALCOVER sheeting system will be used as a demonstration truck for the Volvo network in the Brittany area. Of course, it will also be used to promote PALFINGER products and know-how to potential customers.
To be able to work on such a vehicle, the teams have been given dedicated authorizations. In a vehicle running on electricity or with a hybrid engine, the electrical risk is clearly present: the voltage is between 400 and 700 volts. The involvement of all our employees, from the design office, the production line, the assembly technicians and the quality department, enabled us to integrate the lifting arm in complete safety.
On the technical side, the mechanical installation does not raise any particular problem, because the type of chassis proposed by Volvo is very close to conventional chassis. But the batteries, cables, or the electric motor dedicated to the hydraulic pump... which compose an electric chassis, influence the bodywork. We must then adapt to find solutions without compromising payload, design or safety.
Other challenges also arise when the engine becomes silent thanks to the electric choices. Particular attention must now be paid to the noise that was previously masked by the combustion engine. An effort has been made to select a particularly quiet hydraulic pump to maintain and optimize the benefit of the strong reduction in ambient noise. The operator and his environment benefit from a new experience of using the hookloader as quietly as possible.
New standards of bodywork must be created to meet the new needs. The Caussade Mounting center's mission is to study, test and propose the necessary evolutions to deliver functionally and esthetically optimal electric truck-mounted hookloader while respecting road safety standards. Their recommendations can thus serve as a model for all of the group's other mounting centers and enable the creation of mounting kits adapted to these new chassis.
This increase in the skills of the mounting center enables it to respond immediately to the challenges of the energy transition to ensure a quality service for all customers and users of PALFINGER lifting arms.
Find this solution at the IAA on the PALFINGER booth!