REE Automotive Ltd., a supplier of by-wire electric trucks and platforms, today announced it has delivered a P7-C electric truck to Penske Truck Leasing, which intends to demo the software-driven P7-C to customers interested in electrifying their fleets. Paul Rosa, Senior Vice President of Procurement & Fleet Planning at Penske, and Daniel Barel, Co-founder and CEO of REE, are scheduled to hold a joint press conference to discuss the partnership next week at the ACT Expo in Las Vegas.

“This is the fruit of a long collaboration and incorporation of Penske’s voice of the customer,” said Barel. “We are currently working on additional P7-C configurations to maximize utilization within Penske’s large product offering. By partnering with Wabash for this upfit, we believe that we were able to provide a superior product to Penske, meeting their requirements as well as expanding our roster of upfitters that can seamlessly integrate with REE’s platforms.”

The collaboration with Wabash involves a custom DuraPlate truck body using the unique low floor enabled by the P7-C’s all-wheel steer, all-wheel drive, and by-wire technology. The DuraPlate is lightweight and durable, making it a good fit for an electric chassis.

Vehicles powered by REE are designed to offer benefits for body installations including integrated mounting weld nuts so that bodies can be secured directly to frame rails, battery maintenance accessible from under the chassis, a flat floor with integrated ramp, and plug-and-play chassis harnesses for aftermarket electrical systems.

The Penske demo is just the latest for REE. Less than a month ago, it was announced that Cobb County, GA, was set to begin its demo program with the first P7-C demo chassis cab through Pritchard EV, the only REE dealer with a national footprint. The demonstration chassis cab came off the production line in December and was upfitted with a KUV service body through Knapheide to address the unique needs of the municipal fleet space.

In January, REE completed U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards certification of the P7-C, which Futurride featured that month. The benefits of the world’s first FMVSS-certified, software-driven, electric vehicle powered by REEcorner include full (drive, steer, and brake) by-wire technology with the maneuverability of all-wheel drive, fail-operational design via safety redundancies in hardware and software, and a driver-centric cabin. The REEcorner enables low chassis height and is designed for serviceability for a low total cost of ownership. The platform is autonomous-ready and over-the-air upgrade capable.

The P7-C Class 4 chassis cab has a 16,000-lb gross vehicle weight rating, 7054-lb max payload, 400-kW peak power, a 16-ft maximum body length, and a targeted 150-mi (240-km) range.

The lithium-ion battery energy storage system for the REE EV platform is supplied by Microvast. The new MV-C Gen 4 battery pack contains high-energy HpCO 53.5-A·h pouch cells, delivering about 27% more energy and power than Microvast‘s previous battery generation.