What’s Realistic for Electric Trucks

It seems that as every day and week passes, the federal government and truck manufacturers try to give more reason to start going electric. But it begs the question, what’s realistic for electric trucks?

How industry considers the application of battery electric heavy vehicles versus hydrogen fuel cell or combustion will be a key task that I’m sure many of you are still trying to figure out. Will long-haul trucking ever be viable in an EV? Perhaps not in the near future, with the current charge times models that are already on the market are presenting.

I recently sat in on an update from Foton Mobility, to get a look at where they are headed over the next 12 months and beyond with the models they are bringing from China to Australia.

Foton also announced a stunning eight-year/400,000km warranty, applicable to all existing and future sales of its T5 model within Australia.

Now the T5 is pretty clearly not a prime mover. As a fleet truck, it is best equipped for local or intrastate delivery, with options surrounding Pantech or tipper bodies.

The concept of ‘range anxiety’ is clearly pretty fresh for most, if not all, thinking of purchasing electric. The question came up almost immediately amongst the journalists in attendance. For Foton, this differs for different kinds of bodies, but the general average across the industry sits around 300km.

This could work for local work for a single day, leaving the trucks charging overnight, but covering Australia’s vast distance proves even more of a challenge. You’re not even getting halfway between Melbourne and Sydney on that.

Foton CEO Neil Wang seems to be of the belief that electric best serves that more local market, with trucks that are doing significantly more CBD and suburban driving. Hydrogen may be the answer in harsher climates and across longer distances, performing better in the extreme heat and cold that our country can offer.

There’s of course also battery deterioration to worry about – Foton expects their batteries to start losing range over the five to eight-year range mark, but only by 10 per cent. Replacement batteries could offer these types of trucks a second or third life.

While recent announcements surrounding the increasing of mass limits could bode well for manufacturers advancing their reach in the electric space, companies are still looking at every way to get their tare weight down to be able to take more loaded.

We can see in Europe that the demand for long-haul electric is there – the Mercedes-Benz eActros 600 is well and truly into production fresh off its win as the International Truck of the Year.

Could it ever be viable here? The infrastructure and adoption certainly needs to see a significant uptick before we can find an answer.