Komatsu plans to release a battery-powered compact excavator that emits no exhaust gas in Europe in 2022. The company will also promote the quietness of the product and expects to use it in residential areas. Hitachi Construction Machinery will also double orders for electric excavators in fiscal 2021 compared to the previous year. Following the trend in the automobile industry, competition in the field of electric construction machinery is now in full swing.
The compact excavator to be launched by Komatsu will use lithium-ion batteries that are lightweight and can operate for a long time. It uses a motor instead of an engine, making less noise and emitting no exhaust gas. The company will first market the product in Europe, where environmental regulations are strict, and then consider launching it in Japan. Komatsu began renting several small excavators powered by lead-acid batteries on a trial basis in Japan in April 2020.
At that time, they established the Electrification Development Center with about 100 people as a development department specializing in electrification. The center will also focus on the development of electrification of medium and large construction machinery to solve issues such as cost, output, and battery weight.
Source: The Nikkei (The original article was partially revised by the author.)
PSR Analysis: Construction machinery, which requires more power output than a passenger car, is also moving toward electrification in earnest. Komatsu, the industry leader, appears to be adopting a strategy of first launching electric construction equipment in the European market, which is known to have the strictest environmental regulations in the world, and then expanding to other regions, including Japan and North America, after gaining market recognition there.
Even manufacturers such as Hitachi Construction Machinery and Volvo are still in the development stage of electrification of small construction machinery. Unlike automobiles, construction machinery requires more power, which is a different challenge from electrifying passenger cars.
Even if you want to recharge your battery in the middle of your work at a construction site, often there is no recharging infrastructure near the construction site, and this problem is a major challenge.
In the long run, the performance of the batteries will improve, but at this stage of their development, drive time is still an issue. In order to solve this problem, the demand for portable generators is likely to grow. Many construction equipment manufacturers, led by Komatsu, seem to think that three types of generators are realistic: battery-electric for small mini excavators, hybrid for medium and large excavators, and diesel-electric for larger mining equipment, where the generator is driven by a diesel engine to produce electricity.
The Chinese market is the only one in the world that is rapidly recovering from the COVID-19 shock, but this trend will not last long in my opinion. There is still no end in sight to the COVID-19 problem, but the virus will not wipe out all construction demand. In a way, the electrification of construction equipment is still in its infancy, but with environmental regulations set to become more stringent, electrification is inevitable for construction equipment. PSR
Akihiro Komuro is Research Analyst, Far East and Southeast Asia for Power Systems Research
