The Future of Trucking Expected To Be Charged

The electrification of trucking is inching toward reality, according to some of the presenters at the recent Work Truck Show and Green Truck Summit in Indianapolis.

Electric-powered trucks even represent “the future of the industry,” the president and CEO of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck of America, Jecka Glasman, said in introducing Fuso’s new eCanter, an all-electric battery-powered class 4 truck.

“This truck is a result of extensive research and development and investment from our part company Daimler Trucks Asia and also led by our CEO, Marc Llistosella, who truly believes this is the future of the industry,” Glasman said during Fuso’s press conference at the show, which took place in mid March at the Indiana Convention Center.

The eCanter, which has a 100-mile range per charge and gross vehicle weight of 16,000 pounds, produces zero emissions and no noise pollution. That makes it ideal for the urban delivery market, Glasman said.

She cited United Nations’ projections that by 2030 the world population will reach 8.5 billion, with 60 percent of those people living in cities.

Future is now

“But we don’t have to wait until 2030 to get this truck,” she said. The eCanter, which was introduced at the 2016 Work Truck Show as a prototype, will have a soft launch later this year.

“The price point of about 15 to 20 percent over diesel makes this a no-brainer,” Glasman said. “The performance of this truck is perfectly suitable for a wide range of urban transportation needs. Imagine the busy streets of New York City when this silent truck performs the delivery. All the neighborhood complaints about idling trucks will be a thing of the past.”

But how can electric trucks compete in a world of low gasoline and diesel prices?

Otto Schmid, Fuso’s director of product management, said fuel prices are independent of those concerns about noise and pollution in cities.

“It doesn’t matter if the fuel price is a bit higher or a bit lower,” Schmid said. “It’s just a matter of yes or no for electric trucks.”

Schmid admitted that range is a concern for all manufacturers of electric trucks. However, he said he anticipates huge and rapid improvements in battery technology in the coming years.

“And our strategy to overcome the range issues is to add additional batteries in the future,” Schmid said.

Glasman added that “from a strategic perspective,” Daimler Trucks Asia sees electrification as extending beyond light- and medium-duty trucks. The CEO “believes that electrification will drive most of the products that we will make in the future,” she said.

“It will take some time but in terms of strategic investments and developments this is definitely the direction we’re going,” Glasman said.

Electricity has momentum

Jeff Flath — president and CEO of eNow, which makes solar-based auxiliary power units — said during a presentation at the Green Truck Summit’s Green Media Hour that he believes the transportation industry is “going to be electrified.”

That could take many forms, including hybrid systems. He also envisioned the technology resembling that of trains “where you’ll have an engine driving a generator and then the generator providing electricity to various different components.”

But how might low fossil fuel prices and signals from the new U.S. government about rolling back regulations to curb carbon dioxide emissions impede the electrification of trucking?

Flath noted that his company sells its products around the world and that outside of the U.S., such as in Europe, fuel prices are much higher. Even at $2 a gallon, he said, the payback on an eNow system for a lift gate or in-cab air-conditioning is less than a year, he said.

“We don’t try predict what the government is going to do. But I think there’s enough momentum in the industry that you will see electrification,” Flath said.

He also predicted that the efficiency of solar cells will continue to increase.

“But as efficiency goes up, cell dimensions will come down and you’ll be able to generate more energy on the top of a vehicle,” Flath said.

And in a brief interview after his talk, Flath predicted that Tesla founder Elon Musk would soon “jump into commercial transportation.”

Less than a month after the Work Truck Show ended, Musk tweeted that Tesla planned to unveil an electric semi-trailer truck this September.

Hybrid married to F-150

In the meantime, XL Hybrids of Boston announced its new XLP hybrid plug-in system for 2017 and 2018 model year Ford F-150 trucks.

“It will provide a 50 percent improvement in miles driven per gallon as well as significant reductions in CO2,” XL Hybrids co-founder and chief operating officer, Clay Diegert, said at a Work Truck Show press conference.

The system marries with the existing OEM power train, which keeps all its warranties intact, Diegert noted. XL Hybrids had earlier released its XL3 system for class 2 to 6 vans, such Ford Transit, Chevy Express, and GMC Savana models. XL3 systems have already operated for 40 million customer miles, which is expected to reach 60 million miles by the end of this year, Diegert said.

Several municipalities and utilities — such as DTE Energy, and San Diego Gas & Electric — have indicated they intend to buy XLP systems.

They don’t come cheap, though. The suggested retail price is $29,990, although the company will provide volume discounts. Depending on various factors, such as fuel price, annual miles driven, and the initial gasoline mileage of the truck, “payback is somewhere between 80,000 to 150,000 miles,” Diegert said.

So how is the low cost of gasoline coupled with that nearly $25,000 upfit cost affecting the roll out of the technology and its adoption?

“I think fortunately, fleets are taking a longterm view that the price of gas will not stay at this level,” Diegert said. “They often will keep their vehicles anywhere from five to 15 years, depending on the fleet application. So they really need to take a longterm view on fuel prices and also be aware that it’s a pretty volatile commodity.”

All-electric world decades away

He added in response to another question, however, that the business case cannot depend solely on a desire to go green.

“Everything we do involves a payback and improving the economic proposition,” Diegert said. “So every fleet that is looking at it, even if they’re driven by a sustainability goal, the technology still has to make economic sense.”

What about the longterm outlook on hybrid technologies should the electrification of trucking come to pass?

Diegert said his company supports the full electrification of fleets “but we think that the all-electric, zero-emission fleet world is many decades off.”

In the meantime, he sees a huge opportunity for growth of his company’s business. In the near-future, it plans to make the XLP available on class 2 to 6 trucks in the way the XL3 is now available for vans in those ranges.

“I think it’s less than two percent or less than one percent of all commercial trucks have some sort of electrification technology today,” Diegert said. “That means that 99 percent of them don’t. That’s a huge opportunity for us and that’s going to continue in the decades to come.”

Ford enters hybrid space

Ford itself meanwhile plans to launch its own hybrid F-150 by 2020, John Ruppert, Ford’s general manager of commercial vehicle sales and marketing, said during a press conference at Ford’s Work Truck Show booth.

“Almost 30 percent of our F150 sales are in the form of a commercial business name,” Ruppert said.

Ford also plans to test a Transit custom plugin in Europe this year and have it in production by 2019. And the company recently announced the testing of 10 Transit Connect hybrids, 10 going into taxi fleets including in New York City, he said.

“The other 10 will go into large Transit Connect customers in locations like delivery and telecommunications,” Ruppert said. “So we’re really excited about what that can mean for the future.”

John Scholtes, Ford’s chief engineer for commercial vehicles, noted that XL Hybrids was Ford’s first commercial partner in its electric qualified vehicle modifier program, or eQVM. Other partners in that program are Motiv Power Systems, which installed an all-electric drive train in a Ford F59 van, and hydraulic hybrid maker Lightning Hybrids.

Propane proponent watching

Tucker Perkins, chief business development officer of the Propane Education and Research Council, said his organization is watching those technologies closely.

“I’m at least enough of a scientist to believe that battery technology can get better, charging systems can get better,” Perkins said. “But clearly that’s not today, tomorrow, or five years from tomorrow.”

At present electrification isn’t a solution for fleets where range and payload matter, he said. He also noted that it many cases it doesn’t even make environmental sense if the source of the electricity is from fossil fuels.

“We’re studying it ourselves because one option that makes a lot of sense is to have a battery option with a propane-powered engine,” Perkins said, adding that “I think we’re going to be in the conversation for many decades.”

However, he noted that long payback periods for hybrid systems won’t appeal to many potential users. A propane conversion ranges from $4,000 for smaller trucks up to $15,000 for large vehicles. That produces an average fuel saving of 30 percent, and up to 50 percent overall savings if maintenance costs are factored in, Perkins said.

“I’m all about driving a Toyota Prius, or if you commute to work 12 miles and come home at night, perhaps an electric car’s fine for you,” Perkins said. “But for fleets that have irregular routes, heavily loaded vehicles, battery technology is not there yet.”