3 reasons why batteries will power our future trucks, not hydrogen fuel cells
By: Matthew Beedham (Shift The Next Web)
A lot of the technology required for successful development of electric trucks is already here.
Fuel cell technology is still a long way off.
I used to work with a couple transporters.
The amortization for tractors is surprisingly short.
So we could have a generation of battery-driven
trucks, before the fuel cells arrive.
A prominent decarbonization researcher believes battery electric trucks will become the norm for low emissions road freight, as alternatives, like fuel cell vehicles, are more expensive to run.
In an interview with Clean Energy Wire, Auke Hoekstra, an academic researcher from Eindhoven University of Technology, says that fuel cell vehicles "won't ever be able to compete with electric trucks' business case."
Below are three of the key arguments he makes for why battery electric trucks will become the norm, leaving fuel cell vehicles, and diesel wagons in the past.
Battery technology is nearly ready
As he alludes, around 80% of trucks, in the Netherlands at least, travel 750 km (470 miles) per day, at the very most. If you want to haul goods further than this, it starts to get expensive quickly as you'll need to employ more drivers, and pay overtime.
In reality, most trucks only need to be able to drive 750 km each day. With recent news that Tesla's Semi is aiming for a peak range of 1,000 km, it seems the technology is close to where it needs to be for low emission haulage.
Indeed, recently Swedish truck maker Volvo announced that it would start taking orders in Europe for its fleet of electrically powered haulage vehicles. Better yet, we could see these on roads within the next few years, and being first to market matters.
At present, hydrogen fuel cell trucks are for the most part a more distant concept, with demonstration vehicles expected in the next year or so. It's unclear when haulage companies will actually stand to use them for real.
Infrastructure is simple and cheap
What's more, the vast majority of truckers these days don't lead the romanticized lifestyle that Hollywood perhaps suggests. They're not out on the road for weeks at a time, but perform a few trips per day ferrying goods between ports and distribution terminals, where packages are sorted and moved onto smaller vans for final distribution.
This means that most trucks spend their nights not out on the road, but at distribution centers being packed ready for the morning shift. In other words, it's the perfect time to recharge the vehicle. So any arguments about needing to be able to refuel on the go as you can with diesel, petrol, or hydrogen become largely irrelevant.
It all seems painfully simple, and it is. Switching to electric trucks requires little change to infrastructure. Assuming the wagons have enough range to complete their entire day's journey, haulage companies only need to buy some fast chargers for their depots, and upgrade their fleet of trucks.
Hydrogen is difficult to store and requires special containers to do this. Electric infrastructure is already widely available, and attaching a charger to the grid is a compartively simple affair. For fuel cell trucks to work, there needs to be vast changes to national fueling infrastructure, depots will also need to invest great sums into their own fueling hardware to safely refuel their fleets.
Battery trucks are easy to design
Moving away from infrastructure-based arguments for a moment, switching to battery electricity trucks offers engineers new, and beneficial, design opportunities.
It's quite common for electric vehicles to be quite a bit heavier than their petrol or diesel counterparts. This isn't necessarily the case with haulage trucks. Ok, ok, I should point out here, we're making the comparison to gasoline trucks, not hydrogen ones. But even so, hydrogen trucks need high-pressure tanks, fuel cells, and batteries which is all things considered, a more complex design than a big battery and some motors.
Of course, fuel cell trucks still use motors to power the wheels. They just source their electricity from hydrogen rather than from a battery.
According to Hoekstra, designing an electric truck from the ground up can save weight — about three tonnes, in fact.
Electric motors are more compact and can be placed close to the wheels, and engineering is far simpler than having to use fuel cells, complex fuel cell components and high-pressure hydrogen storage tanks. This means that trucks could be more powerful and spacious, reaping the benefits from the torque characteristics of electric motors.
Within five years Hoekstra expects that we'll have many 40-tonne battery-powered semis with 800 km of range that could carry more cargo than conventional trucks.
With all the developments in battery technology being spurred on by the boom in electric passenger vehicles, electric trucks seem to exist in a far more realistic future thank fuel cell vehicles.
Is Hoekstra is on to something? We'll be checking out the other side of the argument for hydrogen vehicles in future, so stay tuned.
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Trucks are major contributors of green house gases.
Great, what are you going to do with the extra pollution and environmental waste from those batteries from production, and disposal of once they expire?
Theory is great until it meets reality.
Maybe we could just bury them in the arctic national wildlife refuge.
Until they have a good way of disposing the batteries from these trucks/vehicles they are not practical by any means.
Also, did you catch the part about how charging all of those batteries is going to be far more harmful for the environment, and over tax the US power grid as well?
Ideals are great so long as they take into account reality.
Fortunately, we have this great alternative, diesel, which is totally benign for the environment.
Let's PARTY!!
Oh, let's not try to solve the problem of battery disposal let's regress to the horse and buggy era.
That will work out great.
How would you solve another problem? The big trucking companies being able to switch when the gov't regulates the diesel trucks out and the independents and small operations can't afford the electric trucks, another big business win, rich getting richer.
You're right that we must beware of unintended consequences, when contemplating a technological rupture. Since I'm not a tax specialist, I don't have a precise answer, but it shouldn't be too hard to find tax breaks to assist SMBs.
A couple of things bc, first off, IMO, it will be quite sometime before the government regulates diesel trucks out of existence. In that time period, the cost of electric trucks will decrease.
I believe it will be much like the marine industry. 2 strokes were banned from many lakes and 4 stroke or direct injection engines were required. There was a change over period for the old 2 strokes. Now, most lakes require 4 stroke or direct injection engines and the environment benefited greatly.
The trucking industry is going through major changes currently as the number of self-driving trucks is increasing in number and reliability.
Much like other industries, the government can grant a tax credit for the purchase of an electric truck.
One can review the Port of Los Angeles clean air program regarding trucks. It's being done on a gradual schedule. This same program could also include the switchover to electric trucks.
Like everything else bc, time marches on.
The diesel trucks are going to wear out regardless of what kind of replacement truck they buy.
That's really only about 10 to 20 years. Not that long but long enough to save up for a replacement.
We've been working with a startup that are only buying pre 2000 semi tractors and rebuilding them with hopes of another couple million miles, not only do they buy them cheap, as low as $5,000, they also get around DEF and electronic logs. With proper maintenance and parts they don't wear out, up to a few years ago we were still suppling parts to equipment built between the 1920's to 70'(high scrap prices ended that).
So... You're working with a startup to game the system and subvert emissions and public safety regulations. Got it.
Another problem is taxes, right now trucks (like the rest of us) pay taxes on fuel that pays for the roads the more they drive the more fuel they use the more tax they pay. It's a very fair tax system since users are taxed on the amount of road use, heavy equipment causes more road wear but uses more fuel so they pay more tax. How are they going to tax electrics, right now vehicles that use electric, propane, or other nontraditional fuels are not paying road tax but it hasn't been a big problem because they are a tiny percentage of road users. If that percentage grows there will have to be a way to tax them according to their rate of road use.
A GPS tracing system is easy. Several European countries already have one
Well good for the netherlands, which is 1/2 the size of south carolina and the trucks are driven a maximum of 470 miles per day. It’s still a ways off from being reality in the US.
That is actually not far off from the average daily miles run by truckers.
I believe otr truckers are allowed to drive 11 hours per day. If they average 60 to 65 miles per hour (that will vary a lot depending on conditions, traffic, weather, terrain) that gives them roughly a range of between 600 to 700 miles per day. To me that is a big difference from 470. Plus, if they have a driver partner the partner can take over while the other rests, so the truck can keep rolling.
right now the biggest drawback to ev trucks, any ev vehicle is charge time. Yes, they are making progress on that but right now it’s not comparable to filling a tank with fuel. If a truck can travel 470 miles then have to stop for hours to recharge, that is a major difference. If the wheels aren’t rolling the truck is not making it’s owner money.
yes, it’s coming, but it’s still a ways off.
In CA trucks are limited to 55 mph. If they were somehow able to manage that nonstop for 11 hours that's 605 miles. 470 miles sounds like a pretty good day.
That’s california, not all states. And what about a partner taking over? And what about recharging times? Like i said, if the wheels aren’t rolling the truck is not making money.
Long haul will be the first application of autonomous driving. An autonomous truck will go 24/7.
Not if it’s electric. It will have to stop to recharge. I’m not a fan of autonomous vehicles, not looking forward to that happening. I’d rather have a person behind the wheel, even though people make mistakes, so does technology.
There are two solutions. Charging stations at loading point, and swappable batteries.
And of course, a heavy truck can carry as many batteries as desired.
Watch the link I provided on Telsa big rigs. 30 minutes to a full recharge. The total cost per mile is .26 cents savings per mile vs a diesel big rig.
A lot of questions is answered by the video.
Charging stations at load points sounds good in theory but how would that work? Who would pay for those charging stations? The business that makes the product? The trucking company? What if a business does not have the room for a large scale charging station?
from what i have read about tesla semi’s, they can travel 400 miles on an 80% charge and that charge can be achieved in 30 minutes (which is pretty damn good i think) but it doesn’t say what conditions that range was calculated. Given this, the infrastructure is not there. Many, many charging stations would have to be built, which can be done but will take time.
Will our current power grid be able to handle this extra demand? Many so called experts don’t think so. If true that will have to be upgraded, which can be done but again, will take time, and money.
swappable battery packs, i don’t see this as plausible. Batteries are a huge expense in an electric vehicle. If you bought a new ev semi would you want your new battery packs pulled out and replaced with different battery packs of unknown age, quality, condition, etc? I wouldn’t.
Look... I'll bet that if you make the slightest effort, you'll find solutions to the difficulties you're raising. (I can think of several, but I'm not going to play whack-a-mole...)
OTOH, if you do not want to find a solution, you will not.
I've apparently mislaid that link...
Thanks
“Look... I'll bet that if you make the slightest effort, you'll find solutions to the difficulties you're raising. (I can think of several, but I'm not going to play whack-a-mole...)”
if you’re looking for a circle jerk, i’m not your guy. There are very real problems that exist that need to discussed. Ignoring them is not a solution.
“OTOH, if you do not want to find a solution, you will not.”
In order to find a solution to a problem the problem first has to be identified. Acting as if there are no problems, everything’s cool, yadayadayada, will most likely lead to failure.
What ever happened to "Can do!"?
We'll just wait for the Chinese to do it, and then copy.
“What ever happened to "Can do!"”
I thought you wanted a discussion about this? I never said we can’t do it, i’m bringing up the hurdles involved which leads to my original point in this thread that although this is the future, it's still a ways off.
“We'll just wait for the Chinese to do it, and then copy”
that would be the ultimate in role reversal, lol.
Have you ever looked at countries' high-speed rail networks?
Have you heard of The Silk Road?
America needs to stop saying, "Can't be done".
If you can show me where i said it can’t be done then i’ll leave this discussion.
If you want to say nothing can be done about anything, that is your privilege.
“If you want to say nothing can be done about anything, that is your privilege”
if you want to wrongly believe that is what I’ve been saying, go right ahead. It’s clear you don’t want a discussion. See ya.
tell em, anything can be done about nothing.
The Netherlands is part of the EU so their trucks are free to travel unimpeded through 27 countries.
The petroleum industry and their lobbyists in Congress may be a major stumbling block to any near future switch to battery or electric powered big trucks.
Surely
Gotta agree but I would add, they have been a stumbling block for any innovation for decades.
Take a look at who's investing in GM, NKLO and battery manufacturers. Big oil & gas.
They will adapt
Very true.
Tesla is now the most valuable automaker in the world. Their market value is more than GM, Ford and FMC combined. As far as I know, they do not manufacture internal combustion autos.
It would seem that the electric car is here to stay it would seem logical to me that the electric truck is the next step in the evolution of big rigs.
Tesla is moving forward with that.
The Tesla plant being build in Austin TX will manufacture the electric big rigs among other Tesla vehicles
.https://electrek.co/2020/07/23/tesla-semi-electric-truck-production-texas/#:~:text=Elon%20Musk%20has%20confirmed%20Tesla's,upcoming%20new%20factory%20in%20Austin.
Big rigs are ideal for Tesla. Itineraries on major roads, from one logistics bay to another, are easy to master, both for battery / range and for autonomous driving.
Sooner or later, we will see trailers covered with solar panels...attached to electric rigs.
Hybrids are already here.
Loves and Pilot will add more and larger charging stations for human piloted transportation.
Humans are the weak link...
Most major truck manufacturers are building electric big rigs, Paccard, MBZ, Freightliner, Volvo etc etc it's the wave of the future.
Electric box trucks are hitting the road now and in ever-increasing numbers.
Amazon's new fleet of delivery trucks is all-electric and built by Rivan.
UPS is currently using electric trucks and has 10,000 more on order.
Electric trucks are here to stay.
Delivery trucks, mail trucks... are no-brainers. Short daily route, easy overnight charging, ...