FPT Industrial, the leading multinational provider of low environmental impact drive solutions, including batteries for electric light commercial vehicles, buses and minibuses, and Reefilla, an innovative Turin-based startup offering the first predictive mobile charging service, have launched a pilot project aimed at giving a second life to batteries from electric commercial vehicles, in particular the eBS37 model installed in the IVECO eDAILY and minibus.
FPT Industrial and Reefilla have joined forces in a full circle process to reuse electric vehicle batteries once their service life has expired. The proposed solution also assures full sustainability and compliance with new European regulations.
Manufactured by FPT Industrial in its ePowertrain plant in Turin, where e-axles for light and heavy commercial vehicles, minibuses and high-performance cars are also manufactured, some of the eBS37 batteries will be delivered to Reefilla when they are no longer suitable for powering electric traction. The startup will recover the batteries’ modules and over 50% of their internal components. The components will then be installed in Reefilla’s Fillee mobile power banks, for use in recharging its clients’ electric vehicles. By using parts from the high-performance eBS37 batteries, Reefilla counts on significantly increasing the charge capacity of its Fillee power banks.
Set up in Turin in April 2021 as part of the I3P startup incubator and advanced by the Motor Valley Accelerator, Reefilla has developed an eco-system of recharging products and services for electric mobility. It currently has operations in Turin and Milan, where it offers predictive mobile charging services for commercial fleets and private users. The Fillee power banks, equipped with re-used battery parts, are delivered to clients’ vehicles by a fleet of electric vans, thus offering a top-up of green power through photovoltaic recharging centers. This means that the clients’ vehicles are always fully charged, wherever they are and before they ask.
FPT Industrial is launching the pilot project after just six months, creating a full circle, responsible life cycle that manages batteries from production to reuse and actively contributes to the carbon-neutral supply chain of electric mobility. The partnership with Reefilla is a perfect example of the innovative approach adopted by FPT Industrial to solve the problem of end-of-life electric traction batteries. FPT indeed sees the “second life” of these batteries as being both an opportunity to extract further value from them and a chance to make the best possible contribution to the circular economy.
FPT Industrial’s Customer Service has operated according to the 5R approach – Repair, Remanufacture, Reuse, Recover and Recycle – for some time, providing customers with a product management methodology and a series of services that ensure environmental and financial sustainability for the entire life cycle of the product and all its components.
As a brand which has the sustainability of projects, processes and products in its blood, FPT Industrial has developed this pilot project with Reefilla from a consolidated Open Innovation approach that creates value through partnerships with high-tech startups. This agile and successful strategy allows FPT Industrial to accelerate its technological innovation journey along a sustainable path, lining up alongside innovative new businesses within its industrial ecosystem.
“In addition to its important consequences in terms of a second life for batteries and sustainability for the entire process,” says Andrea Cugnini, Head of FPT Industrial’s ePowertrain Business Line, “this pilot project with Reefilla demonstrates that multinationals and startups not only can, but indeed must work together to exchange ideas and implement innovative solutions.”
“Innovating means imagining the future in terms of new paradigms; we are delighted to have encountered the same ambition and goals in a big player like FPT industrial,” says Marco Bevilacqua, Co-Founder & CEO of Reefilla. “Bringing Italian industrial excellence into a startup has been anything but simple, but it has been greatly accelerated by a team dedicated to change and with the imagination to realize it – the same values on which Reefilla is founded.”
Following a positive conclusion to the pilot project, the two companies intend to proceed with broader technical and commercial negotiations in order to further reinforce the synergies between their respective business areas.
