Electric Truckin'

FOR RYAN SZTO ’21, the joy of engineering begins with the simple notion of being in the field. “I hated sitting behind a desk at school,” he says, “so I didn’t want to do that at work.” Ryan is a product validation engineer at Daimler, a truck manufacturer, whose offices are ten minutes away from campus. There, Ryan is working in the growing field of Daimler’s electric-powered semi-trucks. 

Daimler’s electric vehicles will reduce fuel waste and costs, particularly when it comes to local transport and stop-and-go traffic. Where gas-powered vehicles waste fuel when stopped, electric vehicles regenerate their batteries. Daimler currently has a fleet of generation-one electric trucks already on the roads and in testing. 

Ryan’s team tests the thermodynamic and mechatronic—which he describes as “anything electrically controlled within a vehicle”—features of electric trucks with a focus on weather-condition tests. The trucks are tested at the Swan Island office, but the team also travels to see how the vehicles perform in different environments. This summer the team traveled to Las Vegas to perform “hot weather tests” in temperatures as high as 113 degrees. Soon Ryan plans to be behind the wheel himself. He is currently working on getting his Commercial Driver’s License so that he can drive the trucks he tests.

MURPHY BRADSHAW is a Portland magazine intern.