When governments announce ambitious targets for the switch from fossil fuels to electric vehicles, one category is usually left out: Heavy duty trucks. The assumption is that this is a difficult market to shift.
But one trucking company is showing that the transition might not be as slow as some imagine: They intend to go fully electric in their fleet of 34 medium and heavy duty trucks within three years.
Gilberto Enkerlin, the CEO of Norway-based earthmoving company Tom Wilhelmsen, says the company already operates seven Volvo FE electric trucks (medium load up to 26 tonnes) and is soon to take deliver of two Volvo FMX trucks (heavy duty up to 44 tonnes). They mostly operate as tippers, carrying earth and waste from construction sites.
By next year, 40 per cent of his company’s fleet will be zero emissions, and by 2025, he says, it will be 100 per cent.
“It will be electric, or maybe it could be fuel cell, or biogas, I am technology agnostic. But by (2025) it will be zero emissions,” he says. It’s more than likely, in his circumstances, to be electric. That’s because his trucks don’t need to travel long distances, and he’s already witnessed a doubling in energy efficiency in the battery electric trucks in just three years.
Lower emissions, less dust, and much less noise
Enkerlin tells The Driven there are multiple reasons why this transition to zero emissions trucking will and needs to happen. One, of course is reduced emissions, another is reduced dust and dirt because the electric trucks don’t have big fans. Then there is the reduced noise that benefits both the drivers and the communities they operate in.
And then there is the improved efficiency and productivity. Enkerlin says electric trucks beat their diesel alternatives on that count by a factor of three, and it’s not just the payback that’s attractive, it is the ability to operate at night and to secure contracts in inner city areas.
“Range doesn’t matter. What matters is how productive the (electric trucks) can be in 4.5 hours of driving time,” Enkerlin says. The trucks top up at a super charger once a day, that process takes 45 minutes, between shifts and during the obligatory 45 minute break after 4.5 hours of driving time.
“We have gained two years on our competitors in understanding how to work on these trucks, we are ready to take on new technology,” Enkerlin says.
Electric trucks are more efficient
“We have been able to change the way we work. One truck can do work of three trucks, so we create pooling centres to transport the waste which then go onto long haul trucks.”
And Enkerlin says it has made big changes to the communities where the companies operate, including in excavations near apartment blocks and in suburbs.
“You can imagine if you’re sitting on one of those balconies, drinking coffee in the morning, that (the operation of an electric truck) is not going to be creating impact to your quality of life,” he says.
“One of the projects that we’re working on right in the city center where we have our trucks and our main contractor
also has electric excavators, every tool that they’re using on the site is electric.
“And the biggest complaint (from the neighbours) that has come from that project is the noise from the two kindergartens that are adjacent to the project. That’s how cool and exciting this project is.
Drivers were suspicious of the new technology
“And this transfers not only to the local environment, but it transfers to the environment that our drivers are sitting in every single day. So I think we’ve been super lucky that we have taken that step in to investing in electrical trucks in the environment that we are in.”
Enkerlin’s company has 37 drivers – most of them driving diesel trucks for years – and initially they were skeptical about going electric.
“That was a big struggle in the beginning, I’m not gonna lie,” he says. Â “The drivers have been driving diesel engines for years and years and they’re they’re used to that vibration of the engine and their vroom vroom noise that they get in the background.
“And to sit to sit on our electric truck seemed like for them that it was just like the most ridiculous and far removed thing for them. However, all the drivers who have had the opportunity to sit and test these trucks have said that they wouldn’t go back to driving on a diesel truck.
“And that’s been a very positive for them. Also, I mean, the truck creates a better working environment for them in general.”
Enkerlin says electric trucks do make economic sense in Norway because the government provides a rebate of  40 per cent of the additional cost of electric trucks (over diesel alternatives), and he can win more contracts (because of environmental loading in city tenders), and work at night.
Note: You can here an interview with Enkerlin in a forthcoming episode of The Driven podcast which will be published this week.
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of The Driven, and also edits and founded the Renew Economy and One Step Off The Grid web sites. He has been a journalist for nearly 40 years, is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review, and owns a Tesla Model 3.