Overseas markets getting ready for electrification – are we?

In late May 2022 the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its summary of the 2021 electric truck and bus market around the world.

Registrations of electric buses and heavy-duty trucks increased in 2021 in China, Europe and the United States. Sales of electric buses increased 40 per cent over the previous year, although the global bus market remained static.

At the end of last year, there were 670,000 electric buses in operation globally and 66,000 electric heavy-duty trucks – around four per cent of the global bus fleet and only 0.1 per cent of heavy-duty trucks. However, global sales of electric medium and heavy trucks more than doubled over 2020 volumes, totalling more than 14,200, or 0.3 per cent in 2021.

As in previous years, China dominated the electric bus market and nearly 90 per cent of electric truck registrations in 2021. Those figures were generated mainly by China’s electric commercial vehicle maker, BYD, which also used to have 100-per cent of electric truck sales, but other countries took 10 per cent of that market in 2021.

BYD has expanded beyond China and an example is that more than 750 unionised employees build battery electric buses and motor coaches at BYD’s 52,000 square metre manufacturing facility in Lancaster, California.

However, there are many signs around the world that China will not be allowed to continue its absolute dominance of the medium and heavy electric truck market. All major truck manufacturers have implemented factory changes, to incorporate electric truck production.

In the USA, some recent examples are Navistar International’s new San Antonio plant, Daimler’s revamped Portland plant for Freightliner eM2 production and Volvo’s $US400 million investment in its New River Valley, Virginia, factory to assemble VNR Electric trucks. In Europe, there are even bigger investments by all the majors.

Electric heavy vehicles are obviously the way of the future, but it’s not plain sailing, with many hurdles, not the least of which is operating range, to be overcome.

Market expansion in heavy vehicle duty cycles where economics and supportive policy have given electric vehicles a strong basis for market growth – mainly transit buses and ‘last-mile’ PU&D work – have helped to justify manufacturing investment in electrification.

Bus and PU&D return-to-base applications are easily managed by depot-charging overnight, in much the same way that electric forklifts are charged. However, there’s considerable R&D going into other recharging strategies, for applications that can’t use overnight charging.

Hydrogen fuel-cell electric power is being touted as a likely ‘re-charging’ source, but other battery-charging strategies for pure EVs are also being explored.

The IEA report highlights the fact that very fast charging on highways will be needed for regional and long-haul electric trucks.

“Given the high construction and grid integration costs, the business case for very fast charging infrastructure of more than 350 kilowatts, or even more than one megawatt, may be uncertain, especially in the initial years of electric HDV market deployment,” said the IEA report.

“Other options to provide power to electric HDVs are battery swapping and electric road systems.

“Pilot programmes for battery swapping are underway by various companies in China, including CATL, Foton New Energy Vehicle, Geely, China Energy Investment Corporation and Qiyuan Motive Power.”

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In China, 159 new truck models have battery-swapping capability, according to the IEA. In Australia, we have the Janus battery-swap initiative.

Another approach being trialed by the Europeans is recharging power being supplied to a truck by means of inductive coils in a road surface; through conductive connections between the vehicle and road; or via catenary (overhead) power lines.

Field trials of catenary systems installed by Siemens have been used in real-world transport operations on autobahns since 2016. Currently three systems of 13-kilometre length are being used by 15 trucks.

One overhead-wire-charging project is officially named ELISA, a German acronym for electrified, innovative heavy goods transport on the autobahn. Scania R 450 hybrid trucks were fitted with a current collector system (catenary), similar to those used on electric trains and operate for part of their normal daily route under overhead lines on the A5 autobahn, south of Frankfurt am Main.

The trucks operates in electric mode underneath the power line and charge their batteries at the same time. Limited battery capacity is not yet sufficient to complete the entire round trip in electric mode, but the trucks manage a significant part of the route with zero local emissions.

In operation, when the truck approaches the overhead line, the driver selects the right-hand lane, with the aid of ‘lane assist’ and the pantograph extends at the press of a button.

We can’t imagine this particular recharging solution being adopted over Australia’s vast distances, but it’s early days yet.