Electric Trucks Are Coming – But Not All At Once

Electric Trucks Are Coming – But Not All At Once
NTEA’s Truck Product Conference, September 17-18, in Novi, Mich.

By Louis Bedigian

The future is headed toward renewable energy, so it is inevitable that fleet vehicles – from the smallest automobile to the largest truck – will move away from fossil fuels. Mercedes-Benz Trucks was the first to make the leap, introducing its first heavy-duty electric truck concept in 2016. That concept has since been transformed into the eActros truck, which is currently being tested with 20 customers and will go into production in 2021.

Amazon hopes to purchase and utilize 100,000 electric delivery trucks from Rivian that same year. Freightliner, Tesla, Volvo and Nikola Motors are also working on electric alternatives.

Clearly that means the future is electric – or does it? At NTEA’s Truck Product Conference in Novi, Mich., September 17-18, it was clear that despite a decade’s worth of hype surrounding electric cars, neither commercial nor passenger vehicles have yet to make a significant dent in replacing traditional gas engines. This is due to the many challenges facing the switch to electricity.

“There are upsides and downsides in the truck space for electrification,” said Dave Sowers, Head of Marketing for Ram Commercial Trucks. “One of the downsides is these are work trucks and they require payload to get their job done, [and] batteries [are] very heavy. Just by definition, a lot of battery required to move a lot of weight takes away from your payload. There’s a real tradeoff that happens with doing that from a range perspective.”

Griffin Suelzer, Vocational Sales Manager at Navistar Inc. concurred with that assessment.

“Payload is one of the issues you have to deal with, as well as the length of time the battery is going to give you, as far as mileage goes,” said Suelzer.

Heavy Vehicles: Better Suited For Electrification? On the flipside, Sowers believes that commercial vehicles might actually be more suitable for electrification because of the defined driving cycles utilized by fleets.

“They may have a very local driving route and then they can return and always be charged at the fleet location,” Sowers added. “That’s going to vary from fleet to fleet and mission to mission, but those two things will play into the adoption of electrification over time.”

When asked about a timetable for electric truck availability, Sowers said he couldn’t comment. Similar responses came from other exhibitors and attendees at the conference, but one firm, Crane Carrier Company, was willing to discuss its future plans. The company is under contract to develop an all-electric vehicle for the Class 8 market. It will be one of the first to run a multifaceted body, which will make it ideal for refuse, mining, concrete mixing and jobs that require side or front loading.

“We’re designing around those kinds of needs, not just the needs of driving a truck,” said Mark Hampshire, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Crane Carrier. “We are under contract right now, [but] we can’t disclose all of the information on that.”

One detail he could divulge: how Crane Carrier plans to address range anxiety.

“Everyone knows that range is based upon battery technology,” said Hampshire. “Battery technology is improving every day. We’re designing around the anticipation that the battery capacity will be there for what we need to work a complete workday.”

Refuse Trucks: Electrification is Coming - Refuse trucks stop as many as 1,300 times per day, which adds to the challenge of moving to electricity. It is not as crucial as “startability,” however, but is a problem Crane Carrier believes it can overcome.

“That’s one of the largest obstacles because we’ve got trucks in and out of landfills, we’ve got trucks in and out of transfer stations,” Hampshire explained. “To have startability (or gradeability) when you’re accelerating from a dead stop is very important, and today we do not see that.

“When you’re pulling out of a transfer station, particularly, or starting on a hill where you’ve poured concrete, we don’t see 10% as an acceptable measure,” he added. “Most of them do 10%. But we are designing to accomplish up to 23% grade startability, which means that in a 100-foot distance the grade would raise 23 feet. It’s a substantial grade.”

While many in the industry are optimistic that battery technology will catch up with their big ideas, this year’s Truck Product Conference served as another reminder that widespread commercial vehicle electrification still has a way to go. While we’re still in the early stages – and it may be a slow roll-out – fleet can expect to see continual electrification advancements for heavy-duty products.