By Gary S. Vasilash

Companies that make vehicles that you recognize generally have names like “Ford” or “Mercedes.”

Companies that make vehicles that you recognize for who is driving them, like FedEx or UPS, but don’t know who made them, are companies like The Shyft Group, which is a specialty vehicle manufacturer that produces trucks that are used by commercial companies and municipalities and the like.

The company has long specialized in special builds. It has some 3,800 employees in facilities that stretch from Maine to California.

And odds are, you’ve not heard of it unless you are involved some way in logistics. Or you happen to own a vehicle that has rolled out of Spartan RV Chassis.

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One of the consequences of the pandemic is that there is a considerable increase in the number of last-mile deliveries, whether this takes the form of Amazon Prime or Uber Eats.

According to the World Economic Forum, in 2020 there was a 25% rise in consumer e-ecommerce deliveries, which is far from a non-trivial rise. And presumably that has done nothing but increase in the subsequent months.

In addition, the WEC found that there have been increasing commitments by both companies and municipalities to make emissions-free deliveries. Switching away from gasoline and diesel fuel.

Consequently, this has led to the increase in the development and availability of electric trucks.

No, we’re not talking about Ford Lightnings, but in cargo vehicles.

The Shyft Group, having made thousands of vehicles with internal combustion engines for these commercial and municipal applications, has recently launched a new division, Blue Arc, and along with it announced the development of an electric Class 3 delivery vehicle.

The vehicle ranges from 14 to 18 feet in length and provides payload capacities up to 5,000 pounds.

It is working with proven suppliers, such as Proterra for its batteries and Dana for its e-axle.

The Blue Arc vehicle was designed from the ground up, and as Shyft has customers in the cargo-delivery space, its designers and engineers created a vehicle that can be readily integrated into those customer operations.

On this edition of “Autoline After Hours” Daryl Adams, CEO of the Shyft Group, talks with “Autoline’s” John McElroy, freelance writer Mark Williams, and me about how the development of the Blue Arc truck occurred—in a really fast nine months.

Adams describes Blue Arc as the “anti-startup startup,” as it knows the jobs to be done and has built the truck to do them.

It is an interesting discussion of how a company that has a long-standing customer base recognizes the changing needs of those customers and has quickly changed to help address those needs.

And you can see it all here.