How Can Europe Accelerate Electric Trucking?

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Diesel Costs High, Freight Electrification Too Slow

Europe is having a hard time lately, with skyrocketing oil prices dampening economies. Fuel costs, particularly diesel, are prompting surging interest in truck electrification. Europe has been urging truck makers to move toward electric trucking, and they have responded with a variety of electric semi trucks from many manufacturers. Europe is a group of sovereign countries with many standards. The European Union is a political and economic union of 27 states in that area. It issued directives urging action and imposing penalties. In response to European Union directives, companies have formed EV100, a coalition of corporations responding to the need. In a recent story, Steve Hanley wrote about European electric truck makers’ difficulties expanding truck electrification. Here’s a quotation from the story: “In a letter to EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, of primary concern, in their estimation, is expanding the charging infrastructure for heavy-duty trucks in Europe.” There is no shortage of electric trucks in Europe. Expansion could go faster were it not for charging infrastructure. Manufacturers complain about “an alarming delay” in conditions needed to drive market uptake. For Europe, truck electrification is not working as well as in China, where over 90% of the world’s electric trucks reside. The differences between China and the EU show some reasons why truck electrification is slower in Europe. How did China succeed where the EU failed? China made electric trucks a freight system, not a vehicle category.

Transport Planning Accelerates Electric Trucking Infrastructure

Power is a major factor in electric grid infrastructure. Charging electric trucks places demands on power. Peak power determines how much infrastructure is necessary. In grid planning, peak annual power determines how much capital equipment is necessary. Reducing peak power demand is a critical factor for electric truck infrastructure. Figure 1 shows one method of reducing power called route stuffing. It schedules departures on heavy traffic corridors at regularly spaced intervals. Corridors like ones between ports and warehouses are a target for those practices. These corridors often route trucks in a round trip chain. Filling routes with scheduled trips can reduce power demand compared to random trip scheduling. The article Battery Swap Uses Fewer Batteries Than You Think is devoted to methods of analysis and planning that can lead to lower peak power demand. There are other benefits to planning, such as greater truck load capacity from the same amount of batteries. Part of the solution to slow electric truck infrastructure development is to plan infrastructure and truck use practices to reduce the charging power burden. Given the pressing and enduring need due to the diesel fuel cost crisis, it is necessary to reprioritize grid power upgrade demands. Demands for data center power upgrades like transformers for substations should be re shuffled and prioritized toward the diesel crisis. 

For Freight Systems, Charging is Not An Afterthought. Could Swap Help?

In two articles, Michael Barnard outlined the issues. Vehicles are not a transportation system. What does Europe have now? It has an EU Commission interacting with a coalition, EV100. The problem is, there are plenty of trucks available, but who is in charge of infrastructure? You can’t have electric trucks without means of charging, but as the coalition complains, “Significant improvements to charging infrastructure, a reduction in carbon dioxide based tolls, and a coherent policy framework are urgently needed.” There are so many stakeholders — including the commission, vehicles makers, and charging companies across multiple countries — that no one is in charge of infrastructure, and without it, nothing moves. It needs a unity of purpose and action.

If China is succeeding, why not adopt its strategy? Perhaps the answer is right in front of everyone’s nose. As Michael puts it, “the policy connects vehicles to corridors, depots, service areas, grids and freight use cases instead of treating sales targets as sufficient.” CATL offered Europe a system, not a vehicle. This is a “turn key” solution. It’s a well thought out system, including use of methods and practices, not an anything goes free-for-all. That kind of stability and predictability is what EV100 leaders are looking for. This is not a swap-or-nothing scenario. Different techniques apply to various use cases. Swap must be planned for high-use freight corridors and other proper applications. Swap trucks can also fast charge or slow charge, providing flexibility and a system of trucks that includes smaller trucks, not just semis.

What does all this have to do with Europe’s slowly advancing infrastructure? Simply put, electric trucks put heavy charging demands on the grid. Trucks can have megawatt-hour batteries that require megawatt power charging to charge in an hour. Reducing grid power demands can reduce grid infrastructure upgrade costs, and leverage capital investment toward faster implementation.

“The process of getting megawatt charging equipment connected to the grid can take several years, delaying deployment even where operators and infrastructure providers are ready to invest.” The need for megawatt charging equipment is reduced by accelerating swap network development instead of fixed battery trucks that must be charged by fast chargers. “Swaptopus is easy to misread as a quirky name for another electric-truck infrastructure project. It is a newly formed joint venture between Octopus Energy and CATL, created to develop automated battery-swapping hubs for heavy trucks across Europe.” Unlike the government of China that played a role in encouraging standards and cooperation in infrastructure, Europe has a looser arrangement between many countries with various standards. Europe is learning the slow, hard way where battery swapping is most needed.

Every truck application has different optimization. It means that there must be different approaches to fit freight operations in heavy traffic corridors. Quoting Michael Barnard, “Freight operators often run repeated routes between ports, factories, distribution centres and logistics hubs. Those patterns provide known traffic, known stopping points and relatively predictable electricity demand. A swap hub can be placed around an existing freight flow instead of hoping that enough unrelated trucks eventually pass through.”

Freight corridors are a scenario made to order for battery swap. Real trucking solutions include a mix of vehicle and infrastructure types — from small, local delivery, to large, long-haul freight; and from slow, overnight charging, to medium power charging and battery swap — all used in concert to accelerate heavy truck electrification. With a wide variety of charging options, and vehicles and charging use cases targeted in coordination to avoid peak power demands, the path forward is eased. School buses don’t need expensive high-power fast charging. Lower-power chargers can do the trick. Local delivery can use a mix of overnight and medium power charging. Heavy truck dispatch must be more carefully coordinated to avoid peak demand and grid upgrade costs. A mix of medium-power charging and swap stations along with planned use cases can successfully lower electric freight power needs and transport system capital expenses to speed transport electrification.

Conclusion

Transformation and conversion of diesel freight systems to electric requires coordination and planning between government agencies and coalitions of corporations, cities, government agencies, and planners. Transportation is a system basic to societies and economics. Coordination between groups at all levels results in practices, use cases, and infrastructure that produce benefits for all. Grid expansion and construction can take years. In order for Europe to implement truck freight electrification, more structure and planning is needed to minimize grid power requirements, speed implementation, and maximize capital investment results. Transportation system, practices, and infrastructure must be planned for optimum results.