After announcing a deal to buy 150 Tesla Semis in November, the Mississauga trucking and logistics company just ordered more than 6,300 Workhorse electric last-mile delivery trucks

Pride Group Enterprises, the parent company of Pride Truck Sales, T-Pine Truck Rentals and Pride Group Logistics, is placing a firm bet on commercial electric vehicles — as well as its ability to grow into them — with two recent deals that could potentially see thousands of zero-emission delivery trucks and trailers on the road in Canada and the United States by the end of the decade.

According to a press release from Ohio-based OEM Workhorse Group, Pride has submitted a purchase order for 6,320 of its made-in-America C-Series electric delivery trucks. The order is split between the C-1000 and C-650 models, which each have a range of 160 kilometres on a single charge.

The Pride agreement is Workhorse’s largest single sale to date and its first destined for the Canadian market. Deliveries are expected to begin as early as this July and continue through until 2026, Workhorse says.

An all-EV fleet

“[We’re] excited to establish this new partnership, which will add last mile delivery vehicles to our existing product offering. It is one of the key steps we have taken over the past year towards achieving our future target of 100 per cent electric vehicles,” said Sam Johal, CEO of Pride Group, in a Workhorse press release.

The Workhorse deal comes less than two months after Pride announced it had reserved 150 Tesla Semis from the California EV giant, with an option to increase to 500 units based on customer demand. Tesla is set to put the Semi into production this year after initially promising to start making deliveries in 2019. 

The size of both deals would be eyebrow-raising for any buyer, but Pride — which did not respond to requests for comment from Electric Autonomy Canada — is hardly a household name. According to information on its website, Pride Group Logistics currently operates 260 power units — the “tractor” part of a tractor-trailer. In its announcement of the deal, Pride said it plans to deploy the Tesla assets across in its rental, leasing and sales operations as well as in logistics.

From zero to 6,320

Pride’s ambition doesn’t stop there. As Johal stated in the Workhorse release, last-mile vehicles will be a new offering for the company. Yet it’s ordering 6,320 of them.

Evidently, Pride is counting on continuing the upward trajectory that landed it at No. 28 on the Canadian Business Growth 500 ranking in 2019. According to that listing, Pride Group’s overall 2018 revenue was between $200 million and $500 million.

“We believe that electrification is the way of the future as we work together across multiple industries to reduce our carbon footprint… [Our] vision is to invest in facilities that will support charging, full-service maintenance, and a consistent supply of electric trucks on North American highways,” Johal said in the press release announcing the Tesla deal.

Currently Pride Group has logistics terminals and vehicle dealerships in over 10 markets including Stockton, Calif.; Edmonton; Calgary; Toledo, Ohio, and Milton, Ont.

Both the Workhorse and Tesla deals are being conducted in partnership with Hitachi Capital America. The lender is providing Workhorse, which is publicly listed on Nasdaq (WKHS), with inventory financing for the delivery truck order, while it is supporting Pride with its long-haul truck purchases.