Electrification of the trucking industry
Electric semi-truck takeover
Talking history, recent news headlines, analysis, estimates, what truckers are saying, and economic of electric heavy class vehicles (semi’s) by Block Biome Research LLC.
I’ve been noticing an increasing number of articles about large companies buying fleets of electric semis which inspired me to write a brief take on what's happening with the electrification of our trucks, discover where these trucks are coming from, hear what truckers are saying, and to run some numbers. I do hold a CDL and have driven diesel trucks only and am NOT an electric vehicle expert or a financial advisor.
Photo credits in order to Pepsi Co, Nikola Corporation, Freightliner Trucks, Kenworth Trucks, Peterbilt, and Volvo Trucks
Let's get started by taking a quick look at our vehicle electrification history.
1832 - Robert Anderson develops the first crude electric vehicle
1886 - Montgomery, Alabama, established its electric streetcar system nicknamed the Lightning Route
1936 - The Rural Electrification Act was signed into effect
1940 - First electric bus delivered From 1940 to 1951 Scania-Vabis delivered over 120 bus chassis to Stockholm’s public transport company
1996 - GM releases the EV1
1997 - Toyota introduces the first mass-produced hybrid, the Prius
2022 - Tesla releases the Tesla Semi, along with everyone releasing their first model
Electric semi headlines have been making a very frequent appearance in the media, whenever someone orders a fleet, multiple media agencies will write an article about it. There's also been a youtube craze about testing the durability and performance of the Tesla Cyber Truck as preorders are starting to fulfill Winter/Spring of 2024.
Here’s some samples of the headlines released within the Month of May 2024
(May 30, 2024) fleetowner.com Sysco adds 10 electric trucks in Houston
(May 29, 2024) trucknews.com Einride places Peterbilt’s largest-ever order of electric trucks
(May 27, 2024) all-about-industries.com Large charging park for electric trucks opens in California
(May 24, 2024) electrive.com New electric trucks coming to the USA
(May 23, 2024) DHL Group DHL Group is expanding its charging infrastructure for electric trucks with stations provided by E.ON
(May 23, 2024) Autoweek.com Toyota Unit Plans Electric Semi Later This Year
(May 21, 2024) Yahoo Finance Tesla stock gains on electric Semi truck progress, updates
(May 21, 2024) PR Newswire NIKOLA AND AiLO LOGISTICS ANNOUNCE ORDER FOR 100 HYDROGEN FUEL CELL ELECTRIC TRUCKS
(May 16, 2024) REE Automotive’s P7-C Electric Trucks and Platforms Approved for $30,000 Incentive Per Vehicle in Massachusetts
The electric truck and semi race is on, let's what the market has to offer, great job to Nextbigfuture for creating this chart
Chart courtesy of Next Big Future
As of May 2024, how many electric trucks are actually out there?
January 18, 2024- According to an Environmental Defense Fund analysis of the nation’s 12.2 million truck fleet, there are almost 13,000 electric trucks — which can be defined as Class 2B to Class 8 vehicles, or anything from a step-up van to a large tractor-trailer — on the road today.
December 13, 2023 Electric truck deployments by U.S. companies grew five times in 2023 - EDF
State of Charge: 2021 Electric Trends and Milestones - Freightliner
Has there really been a big uptick in electric semi-trucks or is it mostly media shilling? R/Truckers (Posted March 2024)
I’ve seen a handful pulling loads up and down 680 and one in LA. Its just a small amount sold to Frito and Pepsi for testing, they’re not commercially available yet.
I've seen 1, it wasn't a Tesla though I don't think. It was in Portland, I think delivering chips.
I've seen a lot of them. There's a company called Kodiak that goes from Atlanta to Dallas on i-20.
What are truckers saying about electric trucks?
How do y’all feel about electric semi trucks? R/Truckers
I think regular bev trucks will still make sense for shorter distances, as the battery weight can be smaller. Besides just higher density solid state batteries, single use batteries like aluminium air might be significant. Probably the only major replacement for diesel trucks will be hydrogen powered though.
The Freightliner CEO even recently said in an interview (was trying to find it to paste here but cannot) that realistically, the tech to make it work for OTR just isn’t there, and won’t be for a long time. They’re focusing on local runs with it mainly.
Real-World Tesla Semi Range Data is In, And It's Not Bad R/electricvehicles
One of the trucks did over 800 miles on one day, also, current 10-80% time is around 55 minutes, and it keeps peak power during all that time, suggesting that the 750 kW chargers Pepsi has are the limitation and it could do much more Also, with this is mind, starting and ending the day at 10% means it could drive ~1150 miles in a day in a perfect scenario including charging, and since the maximum a pair of drivers can drive in 24h is 22h, even with the “slow” charge times there is barely any penalty in distance covered vs an ICE truck if you always charge on the rest time If charge times go to half an hour with more powerful chargers, you would charge almost exactly 2 hours to drive 22 hours, meaning there wouldn’t be any penalty vs an ICE truck - GhostAndSkater
Economics
(May 10, 2024) Depreciating electric trucks to scrap value - FreightWaves
No visibility on trade-in values contributing to cautious purchases. “Three years ago, the biggest risk around fleets adopting electric vehicles was the residual value and the [anticipated] life of those vehicles,” Mohr told me. “Every single fleet [was] depreciating these things down to nothing because we have no clue what they’re going to be worth.”
“Charging with electricity is approximately 2.5 times cheaper per mile than refueling with diesel.” Tesla
Semi’s appx achieve 7-10 mpg, lets just call it 8 mpg with diesel costing $3.57/gal for simplicity sake costing $.45 cents per mile. Given Tesla's “2.5 times cheaper” claim this would lower fuel cost down to $.18 cents per mile.
Brand new Peterbilt diesel trucks are around the $250,000 range while the brand new Tesla Semi is marketed at appx $200,000. Given the operational cost savings, electric might be the move for regional haulers to pre-order especially while certain states are handing out credits. At the same time, it would be prudent to sit back and wait a few years to learn from the early editions and to wait for costs to decline as more competitor manufacturers enter the market and more charging ports become available.
Forward Speculation
More content will become available throughout the year demonstrating haul lengths, economics, and costs of these purchases
Large fuel/convenience store chains will start building more electric ports for both small vehicles and heavy vehicles.
More states will offer EV tax credits or other incentives for early adoption
2024 ranges are 250-500 miles which will get better over time. Tesla by far has the best long haul E Semi product achieving up to 500 miles with a charge time being 30 minutes to an hour (that's enough for a lunch break)
Fleets are looking forward to higher margins but it's difficult to say if these will materialize. Higher margins will stem from fuel cost savings and payroll savings when autonomy becomes more widely approved
Autonomous driving applications seem more fitting for long haul opposed to intracity
EV mechanic specialists will be in increasing demand
Battery waste and renewable materials recycling services will continue to grow
FMCSA CDL requirements will likely remain the same
Other heavy equipment manufacturers to adopt BEV technologies applying this to other earth moving equipment
Rare earth metals will remain in demand and internal regulations may become more relaxed to achieve higher levels of REM independence
Chips will continue to increase in demand and the US will continue to invest in domestically engineered and produced chips
EV manufacturers and the US as a whale will need to find ways to hedge risk against EMP and solar flares which could be detrimental to supply chains and society if we are over reliant on technology and vehicles that are vulnerable to such events
Electricity costs will continue to climb as a result of increased power consumption used by data centers, EV’s, and domestic manufacturing combined with an increased cost of generating power using renewable sources
Investment in sustainable power generation will decrease if nuclear is adopted especially at the advancement rate of fission technology
Enough speculation, here’s a list of resources and reports to learn more about what’s going on within the industry
Trends in heavy electric vehicles - IEA
Fact Sheet | The Future of the Trucking Industry: Electric Semi-Trucks (2023) - EESI
Run on Less Depot - US EV consumption data - ROL
Thank you for reading,
Daniel - Operator and Author of Block Biome Research and the Bozeman Build Report