Electric Trucks - The Hidden Cost of Electrifying Logistics
The EU's plan for electric trucks sounds great for the environment, but there's a massive hidden cost nobody's talking about: CHARGING!
This video dives deep into the challenges of powering millions of electric trucks.
Are electric trucks REALLY the answer to a greener future?
If you would prefer to read about them, there is a transcript below the video.
Electric Trucks - The Hidden Cost of Electrifying Logistics - Video Transcript
Unexpected costs are likely to emerge as the change to electric trucks moves forward.
The charging of electric trucks will be a challenge from a number of perspectives.
The EU has decided to rapidly phase out diesel trucks from 2030, and electric trucks will require much more charging capacity than car charging.
Many trucks are driven 24/7 and will need to be fast charged during brief windows when they are unloaded or loaded. Volvo CEO, Martin Lundstedt, said in December of 2023 that charging on 1,000 trucks can require the capacity of 1 nuclear reactor.
If 1,000 trucks are charged at the same time at a capacity of 700 kilowatts, they will use up the entire capacity of a 700 megawatt nuclear reactor.
In Germany, there are almost 1,000,000 heavy trucks, and many are passing through. When a large share of all trucks are electric, the capacity needed will many times amount to that of 2, 3, 4, or 5 nuclear reactors.
Cambridge professor David Sibon said in a presentation in Sweden in March of 2024 that it will in many cases be more expensive to move the grid to logistics centers than to move logistics centers to the grid. Many logistics centers are located outside of power grids, and connecting them to grids will require very large investments in cables and other equipment needed to connect them.
Building new logistics centers within power grid areas will be less expensive than to supply existing locations with enough power.
One illustration of the cost of connecting logistics to power grids is that of a new logistics center in Sweden that was about to be finished. The facility manager called up the utility to get them to connect it to the grid, but the utility could not offer the level of subscription needed to secure the charging for all trucks. They were offered a conditional subscription, meaning that the utility is allowed to cut off the power supply at 10 minutes notice.
One medium sized utility in Sweden said there are only currently 10 critical hours in a year, but the number of critical hours will increase with thousands or in large countries tens of thousands of electric trucks in countries, the number of critical hours is likely to increase rapidly.
The goal of the EU is to rapidly increase the share of electric trucks. 50% of trucks sold may be electric already in 2030 and this will result in more than 500,000 electric trucks on European roads in only a small number of years. Thousands of these will need charging during hours of peak demand in the morning and late afternoon, and the number of critical hours per year is likely to increase dramatically.
This means that shortages of generation and grid capacity are likely to occur at many times over the coming years as fleets of electric trucks grow rapidly. As a consequence of this, the EU needs to adjust the plans to real capacity avail level in countries.
Read my recent book, the severe economic and social consequences of the rapid change to electric vehicles to learn more about the change. If you like this video, please subscribe to my YouTube channel or join my email community below.