Below are three of the key arguments he makes for why battery electric trucks will become the norm, leaving fuel cell vehicles as a distant concept of a bygone moment.<\/p>\n
Battery technology is nearly ready<\/h2>\n
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\u2019ll need to employ more drivers, and pay overtime.<\/p>\n
In reality, most trucks only need to be able to drive 750 km each day. With recent news that Tesla\u2018s Semi is aiming for a peak range of 1,000 km<\/a>, it seems the technology is close to where it needs to be for low emission haulage.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, the vast majority of truckers these days don\u2019t lead the romanticized lifestyle that Hollywood perhaps suggests. They\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n [Read: Why this security engineer loves working in infosec<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n 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\u2019s the perfect time to recharge the vehicle.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s journey, haulage companies only need to buy some fast chargers for their depots, and upgrade their fleet of trucks.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Moving away from infrastructure-based arguments for a moment, switching to battery electricity trucks offers engineers new, and beneficial, design opportunities.<\/p>\n It\u2019s quite common for electric vehicles to be quite a bit heavier than their petrol or diesel counterparts. This isn\u2019t necessarily the case with haulage trucks.<\/p>\n According to Hoekstra, designing an electric truck from the ground up can save weight \u2014 about three tonnes, in fact.<\/p>\n 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 gearboxes, transmissions, and drivetrain components. This means that trucks could be more powerful, reaping the benefits from the torque characteristics of electric motors.<\/p>\n Within five years Hoekstra expects that we\u2019ll have many 40-tonne battery-powered semis with 800 km of range that could carry more cargo than conventional trucks.<\/p>\n Indeed, recently Swedish truck maker Volvo announced that it would start taking orders in Europe<\/a> for its fleet of electrically powered haulage vehicles. Better yet, we could see these on roads within the next few years.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Hoekstra is on to something.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>SHIFT<\/a> is brought to you by Polestar. It\u2019s time to accelerate the shift to sustainable mobility. That is why Polestar combines electric driving with cutting-edge design and thrilling performance.<\/span><\/i> Find out how<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Published November 26, 2020 \u2014 10:23 UTC <\/p>\nInfrastructure is simpler and cheaper<\/h2>\n
Battery trucks are easier to design<\/h2>\n
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