JCB’s Quiet Electric Mini Excavator Wins MacRobert Award
The UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering has today announced that JCB’s ultra-quiet and zero emissions 19C-1E electric mini-excavator has won the 2020 MacRobert Award. The MacRobert Award is a prize for innovation that has been presented since 1969 to honor a wide variety of engineering feats, including the CT scanner and Rolls-Royce’s Pegasus engine used in the Harrier jump jet.
JCB faced strong competition for this year’s award from two other short-listed finalists: the all-electric I-PACE sports utility vehicle from Jaguar Land Rover and ecoSMRT liquid natural gas reliquification technology from Babcock’s LGE business.
“To win one of the world’s most respected engineering prizes is an outstanding endorsement for JCB’s electrification team, who have achieved so much in applying a science which was new to our business,” said JCB chairman Lord Bamford. “JCB’s electric mini-excavator will contribute to a zero-carbon future and it’s a huge honor for our contribution to be recognized in this way.”
Professor Sir Richard Friend FREng FRS, Chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award judging panel, said: “JCB’s electric digger is a huge engineering achievement. The team has developed all parts of the electric propulsion system to deliver system performance that matches real customer requirements. This is a huge achievement in itself, but the additional benefits of zero exhaust emissions and much lower noise has lifted the 19C-1E excavator to a new level.”
The 19C-1E excavator is the world’s first volume produced fully electric mini-excavator and with it, JCB has shown it is possible to make powerful construction machinery without an internal combustion engine. Hundreds of the machines have been sold and so far they have saved the equivalent of 33,290 pounds in CO2 emissions across 5,616 hours of work.
As well as significantly reducing carbon emissions, the electric mini-excavator has zero exhaust emissions and very low noise levels. This combination makes it better suited than traditional construction equipment for operating inside buildings or in areas where noise must be kept to a minimum, for example near hospitals and schools and in cities where night shift work is often necessary.
JCB is the world’s largest privately owned manufacturer of construction and agricultural equipment. At 22 plants spanning four continents — and countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, China, India and Brazil — JCB manufactures a range of more than 300 products including Loadall telescopic handlers, backhoe loaders, excavators, wheel loaders, compact excavators, skid steer loaders, compact track loaders, aerial work platforms, rough terrain forklifts, and Fastrac tractors. For more information, visit www.jcb.com.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.