NORTH AMERICA REPORT
According to John O’Leary President and CEO of DTNA, charging infrastructure is the greatest barrier to adoption for battery electric heavy trucks. Speaking to journalists in Las Vegas, he said customers are happy with the electric vehicles they have received but they are unable to expand their fleets with additional electric vehicles primarily due to the lack of charging infrastructure.
“Overwhelmingly, infrastructure is slowing us down in terms of EV deployment,” said Daimler Truck North America President and CEO John O’Leary. “Site prep, permitting, and construction delays all contribute to deployment times being measured in years, not weeks or months.”
“There’s a lot of will in the regulatory and political arenas to make that happen, but when you start talking about moving large megawatt lines of electricity around and building new substations, it just takes time,” he said.
PSR believes other issues such as total cost of ownership (TOC), reduced payload for class 8 trucks, resale value and possible range issues in cold climates can also be significant barriers to adoption.
Disruptions in the supply of rare earth minerals may also cause problems in the near and medium term. Other types of technologies such as fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) hydrogen powered ICE’s along with continued fuel economy improvements to diesel ICE’s may also impact electric battery truck adoption moving forward. Many of these issues will not be fully understood until more field testing is complete.
PSR also believes that eventually these issues can be worked out but not as quickly as the industry and the various state and federal governmental agencies would like. Hopefully, the United States and Europe do not significantly reduce the fossil fuel infrastructure before renewable energy and zero-emission infrastructure is ready for prime time. PSR
Chris Fisher is Senior Commercial Vehicle Analyst for Power Systems Research
