[HN Gopher] The future of long-haul trucking in Europe is electric
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The future of long-haul trucking in Europe is electric
Author : doener
Score : 25 points
Date : 2021-08-12 19:59 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.transportenvironment.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.transportenvironment.org)
| apendleton wrote:
| It seems like there ought to be an "... in Europe" at the end of
| the headline, at least given the evidence they presented. Truck
| haul lengths are getting shorter in the US as well, but
|
| > Close to 80% of road freight activity in Europe is performed on
| trips below 800 km
|
| doesn't really apply in the US yet, where the _average_ haul
| length is still 848km as of 2019[1]. Battery-electric trucks
| still might end up being the winner here, but there are still
| lots of hauls in the US where the battery-weight /range tradeoff
| is likely to be a significant obstacle with current technology.
|
| [1] https://transportfutures.net/navigator-blog/length-of-haul/
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've added that to the title. Thanks!
| Johnny555 wrote:
| That article is about the European trucking industry:
|
| _Close to 80% of road freight activity in Europe is performed on
| trips below 800 km_
|
| I suspect that in the USA, the distances are much longer, though
| I'd really like to see more of our long-haul freight being hauled
| by rail rather than truck. A lot of the cost of trucking is
| externalized -- one study says "Freight trucks cause 99% of wear-
| and-tear on US roads, but only pay for 35% of the maintenance".
| Trains are already around 3 to 4 times more fuel efficient than
| trucks... start electrifying rail lines and emissions could be
| cut even more.
|
| Charge trucks their share of that road wear and trains would
| become more competitive even if they take longer.
|
| Trucks won't go away, they'll still be needed for the last mile
| (or last hundred mile) delivery from the train terminal to the
| customer.
| dantheman wrote:
| Because of the Jones act we don't rally do shipping between US
| ports which would be a huge benefit.
| [deleted]
| ljf wrote:
| From a link on this page:
|
| Declining Length-of-Haul
|
| Today, the average length-of-haul is just 62 percent of what it
| was in 2005, decreasing from 800 miles to 500 (Fleet Owner).
| And the rate of decline appears to be accelerating. Since 2012,
| average miles driven between pickup and delivery have declined
| by 26 percent in reefers, 10 percent in flatbed trucks, and 9
| percent in dry vans (Overdrive).
| kjksf wrote:
| According to https://www.bts.dot.gov/sites/bts.dot.gov/files/do
| cs/FFF_201..., the US is the same (see page 15)
|
| 50% of freight (by volume) is under 100 miles. 84% under 500
| miles.
|
| It'll take years to transition new truck sales to 84% electric.
| By that time the batteries will improve: cheaper, lighter /
| more energy dense and therefore we will make trucks that go
| even more than 500 miles.
| Sevii wrote:
| A lot of freight is already transported by rail in the US
| 18-30% depending on who you ask. This seems about on par with
| or bigger than the fraction of fright that travels by rail in
| Europe.
|
| Part of the difference is that rail in the US is used mostly
| for fright whereas people use trains to get around more in
| Europe. Passenger focused rail vs fright focused rail.
|
| 30% according to railroads.dot.gov.
| https://railroads.dot.gov/rail-network-development/freight-r...
| User23 wrote:
| It's easy to forget what a big deal rail is in the USA,
| because the freight lines successfully lobbied Congress to
| allow them to eliminate the passenger cards they used to be
| required to add to the end of their freight trains. Back when
| that was the case passenger rail travel in the USA was cheap
| and ubiquitous, because it went everywhere the mail did. E.B.
| White has a wonderful little essay[1] about it. The full text
| can be found in the excellent Essays of E.B. White[2].
|
| [1] http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=91313
|
| [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/394616.Essays_of_E_B_
| Whi...
| [deleted]
| Animats wrote:
| The near future of short-haul trucking is electric. The boring
| but useful Ford Transit goes electric next spring, along with the
| F-150 pickup. Many companies who have a fenced yard full of
| company trucks parked all night are likely to go for that. A
| Level 2 charger at every space, and the fleet sits there and
| charges at night.
| jet_32951 wrote:
| Perhaps if the catenaires are only in the rightmost lanes the
| experience of "elephants fucking" (e.g. a truck moving at 92 kph
| is overtaking one moving at 91 kph) could be mitigated.
| FpUser wrote:
| >" will likely reach cost parity with diesel as early as 2025 if
| the right policy incentives are in place"
|
| Weasel terms instead of honestly telling that we will increase
| the cost of owning and operating regular trucks until they will
| become uncompetitive. Nothing's wrong with it if the end benefits
| outweigh the economic harm. Just please do not insult people's
| intelligence.
|
| P.S. There is a good chance that sometime in the future batteries
| tech might improve to the point that makes them competitive for
| truckers as well but this remains to be seen
| dchuk wrote:
| I work deeply in heavy duty trucking technology in the US, and
| literally recently talked to many operators of large fleets about
| electrification. The only real opportunity for electrification is
| on short haul, less than ~300mi routes. For electrification to
| work in long haul (multi-day routes), they carriers will need to
| re-work how they actually plan freight lines to introduce many
| more hand off points along the route, which is going to drive up
| costs all around.
|
| It's solvable, but there's a lot of work left to do. The majority
| of freight in the US is still basically hauled via brute-force
| human planning.
| UglyToad wrote:
| I didn't see it mentioned in the article but is swapping out
| the battery entirely an option being investigated, i.e. you
| roll into the truck stop and some process takes the depleted
| battery and inserts a charged one.
|
| It was discussed on the past for cars but I'd assume it's
| easier to design for trucks due to their specialised use?
| dchuk wrote:
| I actually asked that exact question as well recently :)
|
| The problem is that the truck batteries are absolutely
| massive (4k+ pounds), so while I'm sure it's technically
| possible, practically speaking, moving around and storing
| batteries that big and heavy is just not realistic today.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Most likely not.. it would be difficult to warehouse, move,
| charge and redeploy the batteries in typical truck stops. On
| top of that, with so many different fleets in operation in
| the US, there's no guarantee there will be the broad
| compatibility and on-the-road service that you would want
| when integrating an unknown piece of equipment on your
| vehicle.
|
| It will likely be more difficult for trucks. The amount of
| space consumed by the battery is prohibitive, and they're not
| laid out "below the floor" like they are in a passenger
| vehicle. They're typically in a large stack behind the
| drivers cabin, imaging the type of equipment needed to do the
| swap, I can't see this happening regularly.
| kjksf wrote:
| According to
| https://www.bts.dot.gov/sites/bts.dot.gov/files/docs/FFF_201...
| 84% of freight by volume is under 500 miles.
|
| Do you dispute that?
|
| Tesla Semi will be 500 miles so current technology can address
| 84% of the market and by the time 84% of semis sold are
| electric, batteries will be cheaper and more energy dense, so
| trucks will go even further.
| xwdv wrote:
| Isn't this an NP hard problem?
| dotcommand wrote:
| Seems like a straightforward electric truck mileage/range
| problem.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| For Europe the distances are less daunting - that 300mi (500km)
| gets you from Paris to Frankfurt, or Milan to Frankfurt.
| mdorazio wrote:
| As others have already mentioned, this really applies to places
| like Europe where truck routes are quite short. In the US I'm
| bullish on hydrogen-powered trucks (fuel cell). It's a technology
| that doesn't make much sense for passenger vehicles, but does
| make sense for heavy duty commercial vehicles that can have
| planned stops and fleet-managed stations.
| unbalancedevh wrote:
| I don't see this being a big player in the US any time soon. I'm
| having a hard time imagining the infrastructure required to
| service recharging all the batteries at truck stops every night,
| even if the range problem gets solved.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| All of the new large battery factories that I've seen make the
| news are being built as joint ventures between a battery company
| and an automaker for the exclusive use of the automaker - and the
| capacity is probably never going to be sufficient for the
| automaker to sell batteries to 3rd parties.
|
| Do you really gain "economies of scale with passenger cars" if
| you have to build your own battery factory for your long-haul
| trucks? Which would never be of the same capacity as the
| automaker factory?
| Symbiote wrote:
| Several European car manufacturers are also truck
| manufacturers, although there are several that aren't.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| Ah, makes sense then
| Baeocystin wrote:
| Some numbers for the US for comparison:
|
| https://www.capstonelogistics.com/blog/trend-watch-2019-leng...
| ljf wrote:
| Quote from this link :
|
| Declining Length-of-Haul
|
| Today, the average length-of-haul is just 62 percent of what it
| was in 2005, decreasing from 800 miles to 500 (Fleet Owner).
| And the rate of decline appears to be accelerating. Since 2012,
| average miles driven between pickup and delivery have declined
| by 26 percent in reefers, 10 percent in flatbed trucks, and 9
| percent in dry vans (Overdrive).
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(page generated 2021-08-12 23:02 UTC)