JCB's ultra-quiet and zero emissions 19c-1e electric excavator has won the 2020 MacRobert Award. The MacRobert Award is a prize for innovation that has been presented since 1969 to honour a wide variety of engineering feats, including the CT scanner and Rolls-Royce's Pegasus engine used in the Harrier jump jet.
JCB faced competition for this year's award from two other shortlisted 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.
The 19C-1E excavator is the world's first volume-produced fully electric digger, showing 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 15,100kg in CO2 emissions across 5,616 hours of work.
As well as significantly reducing carbon emissions, the electric digger has zero exhaust emissions and very low noise levels. This combination makes it suited to operating inside buildings or in areas where noise must be kept to a minimum, for example near hospitals and schools and in city centres where night shift work is often necessary.
