Electric Power

Electric Truck Charging FAQs

electric truck charging FAQs

Many trucking operators know that in years to come they will need to be setting up a charging station for their trucks, so PowerTorque asked JET Charge about some of the electric truck charging FAQs which the company comes across.

Whether we like it or not there are some major changes in the future for the trucking industry. The reality of climate change is dawning across Australia, and this will, one day, introduce an increasing drive towards zero emission trucks. Exactly what that day will look like and when that day will come is uncertain, but that day is becoming inevitable.

There is plenty of debate about exactly how Australia will get to a lower carbon trucking industry. There is also an ongoing of debate about electric power, hydrogen and other forms of gas power. One thing  seems increasingly certain, there will be a lot of electric trucks on our roads around our cities, handling the short to medium haul work.

If this is the case in the future, the implication for road transport is that it needs to think about how it is going to move over to this power source, whether it is in five, ten, fifteen or twenty years time. If an expanding trucking operation is developing a new depot, they may need to think about putting in a fuel bowser, but they definitely need to be prepared to make sure the basics are in place for any future electric vehicle charging system. 

electric truck charging FAQs

PowerTorque sat down with Alex Bowler, who is the Business Development Sector Manager for bus and truck at JET Charge, currently concentrating on the bus industry. Some bus operators are already well down the road to electrification, years ahead of the trucking industry, but our industry can learn a lot from how the project is developing.

JET Charge was created in 2013 to supply and install electric vehicle chargers beginning with installing EV Chargers for Tesla owners in Victoria. The company has grown to be a supplier of the full range of EV charging needs. JET Charge provide services across the EV charging industry, all the way from selling the accessories an EV owner needs in their garage, to setting up full blown charging infrastructure for large fleets.

“We are already doing a lot of work with logistics fleets, and we are also doing more and more work with bus depots,” says Alex. “The size of the jobs we do can vary greatly depending on the size of the fleet that being transitioned at each site. For operators with one or two vehicles, job requirements are very different in comparison to a fleet with hundreds of trucks. The fundamental design principals are similar, but the size, scale and cost of the infrastructure increase with the fleet size. 

electric truck charging FAQs

“Every site is going to need the basics, like a connection to the grid or power source which runs through some sort of low voltage distribution on the site to connect up to the chargers. For bus and truck charging, you’re going to need a 3-phase connection to get enough power to the vehicles.  

“There are two different types of chargers you’ll need to consider, alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC). All vehicle batteries are ultimately fed with DC electricity. The conversion or rectification from AC to DC happens either via the on-board charger in the vehicle if using an AC charger, or in the charger itself which then feeds DC power to the vehicle. The conversion requires some heavy and expensive equipment which needs to sit either in your vehicle or in the charger. 

“Most of the AC chargers we see at the moment cap out at 22kW based on the on-board charger or rectifier size in the vehicle, although there are some buses and trucks coming to market which support around 40kW to 80kW AC charging.  It will be interesting to see if the new electric trucks coming to market  in the next few years are going to push the requirement for AC charges higher. JET Charge has a prototype 40kW and 80kW charger we’re looking to test. Having said that, we have seen a strong trend towards DC only charging in the bus space.”

A lot of smaller trucks, those involved in pick-up and delivery tasks, will be able to get by using these AC chargers. If they have batteries sizes up to 100 kWh, they can be charged up around five hours or overnight. If you can get away with an AC charger for a transport task, there is an advantage, they are a substantially cheaper to buy and install than the more powerful DC chargers. If a 22kW AC charger costs $2,000 – $3,500 a 22kW DC charger will cost closer to $20,000.

electric truck charging FAQs

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