No, the EV market is not collapsing, but battery prices are

Land transport emits ~20% of global CO2 emissions.  By 2040, most of the global land transport fleet will be electric.   Good news.

 From The Driven

[T]he claimed collapse of the EV market is not actually a thing. Yes, sales have fallen in some markets, such as Italy, Japan and Germany – the homes of some of the world’s most notable car brands – but they are gaining in most other countries, even including the US, which has grown 3 per cent in the first quarter, year on year.

Spectacular growth is being witnessed in the huge China and India markets, and France and the UK are also doing well.

“EV sales are headed for another record year,” says one of the lead authors, Colin McKerracher.

“Despite the headlines to the contrary, global EV sales continue to grow and are set to rise about 20 per cent this year. Combustion vehicle sales peaked in 2017 and have no real route back to that peak.”

Another interesting part of the market is the commercial vehicle market, and the heavy vehicle market.

“Electrification of commercial vehicles is a bright spot, with just under a million sales expected this year,” McKerracher says. “Other areas like two/three wheelers and buses have already achieved high levels of EV adoption.”

BNEFs outlook is for continued strong growth, with 20 per cent of light truck sales to be fully electric in 2027, 9 per cent of medium and heavy duty truck sales and 52 per cent of bus sales. Not that you would notice in Australia.

BNEF predicts heavy duty trucks sales will be 18 per cent electric by 2030, and 43 per cent by 2040.

“Electric heavy trucks become economically viable for most use cases by 2030,” it says.

“In heavier segments, battery electric trucks are mostly used in urban duty cycles initially. But their economics improve even for long-haul routes and around 2030 approach those of diesel powertrains. ”

One of the big reasons is the falling costs of battery storage, and the fact that are going to continue to fall.

“Battery prices in China are plummeting,” McKerracher says. “Year-to-date cell prices for LFP cells in China are $US53/kWh (which is down from the 2023 global average price of $US95/kWh). Overcapacity and low raw material prices are a factor, but processes and technology are also still improving.

“We’re nowhere near the end of how good this technology can get.”

Electric truck battery swap much cheaper than diesel

 Electrifying cars and light trucks is relatively easy compared to the electrification of heavy trucks.  They need so much more power than cars and light trucks and therefore have a much bigger battery pack.  Which means either that they will take much longer to recharge or they will need much more powerful fast chargers.  Tesla has chosen the second option with its 'semi'.  The alternative is to swap out discharged battery packs, and replace them with already charged batteries. 

 

 From The Driven 

Electric truck maker Janus has debuted the first battery-powered prime mover in Australia and has plans to set up battery swap stations up and down the eastern seaboard within months.

Janus director Bevan Dooley shared a video of the company’s first road-ready prime mover to Youtube on Sunday, ahead of plans to make units available for trial by fleets in March.

Giving a loud “honk honk” as the converted Freightliner Coronado drives by – in stark contrast to its relatively silent drive down a street – the video is a first taste of the company’s plans to electrify long haul truck fleets using only batteries.

The company plans to offer new prime movers installed with its Janus Conversion Model (JCM) as well as converting existing diesel trucks for fleets that are due for an engine replacement or overhaul.

“Fleets are very eager to come on onboard – they are getting getting pressure for customers for carbon zero solutions,” general manager Lex Forsyth tells The Driven.

Notably, the company is planning to install “Change and Charge” stations at key locations on major routes to avoid lengthy recharge times. Also known as “battery swap”, this is a method also being deployed in China, and also now Norway, by EV maker Nio for its range of electric cars.

For Janus trucks, it will mean batteries can be dropped off and charged on-site, reducing downtime for drivers and lengthening the life of the battery.

“Fast-charging (semi trailers) is not viable,” he says, as generally only 60% of battery would be used to ensure the battery doesn’t degrade too quickly.

The vehicle in the video above has two 620kWh batteries on either side of the cab, meaning almost 500kWh worth of battery materials would essentially go unused most of the time.

Also, he says, “the size of the power feed to charge within an hour is just huge. We want to give the operator 100% use of the battery, and a sustainable future for the battery.”

Forsyth says depending on what the prime mover is towing, it will get 500-600 km range for a single trailer or 400-500km for a B-double.

The company is making plans to install its Change and Charge stations in Sydney, Port Macquarie, Grafton and Brisbane to begin with. It has also secured a site at Port Augusta in Adelaide, and has plans to expand down and across to Melbourne.

“When drivers take their scheduled fatigue breaks of 15-30 minutes, that’s where we are locating the Change and Charge stations,” he says.

He says that the choice to make battery-electric prime movers over hydrogen is purely numbers-based. In fact, he says that hydrogen fuel cell technology is the most expensive solution.

“Fleets are learning that hydrogen is not the answer – the numbers are not stacking up,” he says.

He gives an example of Brisbane to Sydney which is an approximately 960km-long trip. A battery electric truck will need around 1732kWh of energy to pull a B-double up the coast at a cost of around $320.

By contrast, a diesel truck needs 520 litres of fuel to do the trip which will cost about $780-790 (after the fuel rebate is applied). Hydrogen, however, would cost a mind-blowing $1450 using current US prices which equate to around $A18 a kilo (a truck would need 80 kilos to do the trip).

He points out that the “magic number” of $2 a kilo touted by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency would only be achievable if electricity cost 5c per kilowatt-hour.

“If I can buy electricity for that much I’ll put it straight into batteries,” he says. “And even if the cost of hydrogen came down to $7-8 it’s still dearer than diesel.”

“We’re not trying to bash hydrogen, it just doesn’t make sense as an energy source.”

Another advantage of using batteries – and in particular by employing a battery swap method over fast-charging – is that fleets can keep up with cell technology more easily.

Forsyth says that he believes lithium-sulphur technology will mean Janus trucks can do 1,000-1,800km in the not-too-distant future.

“As new tech comes economically technology and available, we just change the cells.”

To begin with, the battery cells will be changed manually using forklifts but the company plans to introduce robotic pallet lifters to do the job once routes have been established.

The company is also setting up approved dealership networks to support fleets in all Charge and Change locations.

Asked if he thinks Janus is limited by the same cell constraints that is holding the tesla Semi back, he says: “We can source enough cells for what we want to do right now – we just need right energy density (from a multitude of cell makers).”

He says that Janus will complete road testing by end of February and be open for fleets testing by the end of March.

[Note the cost estimates.  Electricity: $320 for ±1000 km; $780 after the diesel rebate for diesel; $1450 for hydrogen-cell.  Note also that the old diesel engine can be replaced by an electric engine.]

E-trucks: Volvo doubles range; Kenwood triples orders

From CleanTechnica

Kenworth e-trucks

We get all wrapped up in electric car news here at CleanTechnica, but electric trucks are where it’s at when it comes to lowering atmospheric pollution. In southern California, the crud spewing out of the exhaust pipes of thousands of diesel-powered heavy trucks lugging shipping containers from ports to distribution centers has turned the air poisonous. Battery-electric trucks are the answer and they can’t come fast enough.

Volvo Trucks Increases Range 85%


Starting in the second quarter of 2022, the Volvo VNR Electric Class 8 heavy duty tractor from Volvo Trucks North America will feature an 85% range increase, faster charging, and more configurations to meet the needs of more customers. The trucks are manufactured at the company’s New River Valley manufacturing plant in Dublin, Virginia.

The company says improvements in battery design have increased the energy storage capacity of its batteries by as much as 40% while a dedicated Battery Thermal Management System has been added to manage and maintain ideal environmental temperatures. In addition, the company now offers a 565 kWh, 6-battery package that offers an operational range of up to 275 miles with a full load. Charging capacity has been increased to 250 kW, which enables an 80% recharge of the 6-battery package in 90 minutes or 60 minutes for the 4-battery package.

Kenworth Triples Electric Truck Orders

Kenworth Truck Company has tripled orders for its medium and heavy duty electric trucks in the past 90 days as fleet operators take advantage of incentives to offset the upfront cost and add zero-emission capacity ahead of coming sales quota regulations. Media attention and the fact that 5 other states have adopted California’s Advanced Clean Truck rules has created curiosity, which was followed by a sense of urgency when the sales quotes contained in those rules became public.

“We’ve quoted electric vehicles in 44 states,” Hank Johnson, Kenworth general sales manager for vocational and medium-duty trucks, tells industry news service FreightWaves. “We’ve taken orders from every region of the country and most of Canada. When we started this, we focused on the West Coast, where the significant grant money resided but to our surprise, there has definitely been a lot more activity outside of those states than we originally anticipated.”

The order numbers are still small — in the dozens — as fleets determine the best routes to run zero-emission trucks, how to account for chargers and the sometimes pricey infrastructure investment to get the power they need to their door. “What they are typically doing is [managing] the truck through different applications, through different routes,” Johnson said. “They’re going to try to figure out which one works better for them, and then it will become a permanent piece of their fleet, and the next truck, assuming the performance is good, will stay in the fleet.”

Though payback comes quickly in electric-versus-diesel fuel savings and maintenance costs project to be 30% lower, infrastructure expenses can be a wild card. “It literally could depend on what was the infrastructure underneath the ground to your site. Did you just put it in five years ago and it’s all up to code and there’s excess capacity for you to add a charger, then the investment on the infrastructure there could be low,” Johnson says. “But if you’ve been somewhere down near a port for 70 years and nobody has [put] a new transformer in, that could be significant. It really does depend on what you come to the market with.”

Kenworth is working with infrastructure partners Schneider Electric and EnTech Solutions to offer advice to customers on charging infrastructure. Paccar Parts is providing charging stations. Kenworth is also offering grant-writing help to save customers money on the higher up-front cost of electric trucks.

Several states that offer grants to offset the cost of buying electric trucks require the purchaser to retire an older, dirtier truck to get the money. The grant writer can make suggestions to state regulators, such as allowing a single axle truck to be taken out of service instead of a tandem axle model. “What we’ve found with some customers is they have old trucks that they just haven’t disposed of that they’re not using,” Johnson says. “Those are easier to dispose of because you’re not taking a working asset off the road.” Right now, because of supply chain issues, the lead time to get delivery of an electric is about half that of a diesel-powered truck.

Electric trucks may not be for everyone. Just as with EV buyers, the cost of installing charging equipment can be an issue. Upgrading the electrical service in a home with a 60 amp breaker panel can cost a lot of money. Commercial charging equipment can also be costly to install. But lower fuel and maintenance costs can offset many of those upfront expenses and pay dividends as the years and the miles go by.

Truck manufacturers have been surprised by the interest in electric trucks just as automakers have been surprised by the interest in electric cars. CleanTechnica readers, on the other hand, have not been surprised. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

Truck industry begs for e-trucks

From Melbourne's The Age

Switching to electric delivery trucks rather than diesel-powered ones could mean cutting noise, congestion and pollution on suburban and city streets as freight curfews are lifted, with the trucking industry backing an energy switch that it says will save companies money.

Internal combustion engines are louder, pollute more and have higher running costs, while quiet electric engines could power trucks for nighttime deliveries around urban areas, avoiding the curfews many councils currently place on diesel trucks, reducing traffic congestion.


The Australian Trucking Association (ATA) has produced a report with the Electric Vehicle Council advocating a switch to electric vehicles to reduce health impacts and save the industry money.

“It costs about $117 to fuel a diesel truck for 300 kilometres, but just $18 for an electric truck,” ATA chairman David Smith said.

“If Australia gets left behind on the transition to electric and zero emission trucks, we risk our supply chains and exporters getting stuck with high, globally uncompetitive per kilometre freight costs.”

Experts attribute more than 1500 deaths a year to respiratory illnesses from air pollution due to emissions from cars and trucks. Road freight in capital cities and urban centres creates up to 40 per cent of total road freight.

The ATA’s report called for incentive payments for charging infrastructure at depots and public roads, incentives for new purchases of electric trucks, making electric and zero-emission trucks exempt from stamp duty, and setting a sales target for zero-emission trucks of 30 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2040.

Daimler manufactures Fuso electric trucks, and chief executive of the Australian branch of the company Daniel Whitehead said it was “investing massively in zero emissions technology for our Fuso, Freightliner and Mercedes-Benz brands”.

“We believe battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell solutions have a huge role to play in Australia’s freight future and will deliver major benefits to our customers and the community,” Mr Whitehead said.

The ATA’s report, Electric trucks: Keeping shelves stocked in a net zero world, said there are vehicle models available today that could be deployed into existing urban fleet operations. The association is aiming for 100 per cent of new truck sales to be electric by 2040.

It calls for the government to support the industry financially, and to change vehicle standards so new models designed for major markets in Europe and North America are deemed roadworthy in Australia.

Volvo Group is planning to build electric trucks in Brisbane by 2025 and Australia vice president Paul Illmer said traffic and health benefits were key market opportunities for the company.

“Electromobility has the potential to transform the way our cities operate,” Mr Illmer said.

“You can make deliveries at night without disturbing local residents, which could also reduce traffic congestion during the day. The impact of diesel fumes on the general public is also reduced, making our cities healthier places to be.”

The Fuso eCanter light duty delivery truck. The manufacturer says its quiet and clean engine makes it well suited to urban deliveries. CREDIT:JASON SOUTH.