Global EV Outlook 2019 |
1. Status of electric mobility |
testing. These include over 50 electric trucks from MAN, DAF, Mercedes and Volvo (MAN, 2018; Volvo Trucks, 2019; Daimler, 2019a; Daimler, 2019b; DAF Trucks, 2018). The testing operators are from various sectors, including food retail, logistics companies and public service such as garbage collection. A number of retrofitted conventional trucks or special purpose vehicles with low-range profiles, such as at mines and ports, are also in service.
Early adoption of electric trucks focuses on urban mission profiles for several reasons. The rollout in urban settings makes it easier to optimise charging stops along routes, bringing the mission profiles of these trucks closer to buses than long-haul vehicles. Urban trips thus pose lower requirements for battery capacity, especially in a context where suitable roadside high power charging along major long-distance corridors is practically non-existent. Moreover, electric trucks enjoy easier access in cities with regulations to curb noise or air pollution than diesel trucks, which is a potential competitive advantage for electric trucks. The size ranges from mid-sized vehicles of about 16 tonne payload (200-300 km range and 100-300 kWh battery capacity) to tractors that haul up to 37 tonnes (100 km range and 170 kWh battery capacity). Policy initiatives, growing interest in lowor zero-emissions medium and heavy-duty trucks from major logistic companies33 and the attractiveness of the battery electric option from a cost perspective for specific mission profiles (e.g. urban deliveries), suggest that wider electric truck penetration is likely in the coming years. (See Chapter 2, Vehicles for a discussion of key policy instruments and plans of manufacturers to roll out electric trucks.)
Charging infrastructure
With battery sizes of about 300 kWh for medium-freight trucks and up to about 990 kWh for heavy-freight trucks, electric trucks have higher requirements for charging infrastructure power ratings than passenger cars in order to recharge in a reasonable time that is compatible with their commercial operation. Today publicly accessible chargers dedicated to trucks is minimal as electric trucks in circulation operate with small groups of trial clients on short routes, for instance, urban deliveries or waste collection. Complete charging of a 300 kWh battery truck takes six hours with DC fast charging at 50 kW. Existing electric trucks mostly use private depot charging.
Heavy-freight trucks and other size trucks with long driving ranges will require higher power than today’s DC chargers (< 200 kW) and need to be installed along transport corridors. For example, the Tesla Semi will have a range up to 965 km and an estimated battery size of almost 1 000 kWh. Tesla announced the roll-out of a network of mega chargers that can provide charge for 640 km (400 miles) in 30 minutes, meaning that the capacity of these chargers will exceed 1 megawatt (MW) (Alvarez, 2018). Charging stations for trucks can achieve a high utilisation rate as a big share of long-distance road freight traffic concentrates on a limited number of major transport corridors. A high utilisation rate can realise economies of scale and reduce costs of operating the mega chargers.
Other modes
In 2018, 23% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the transport sector were from nonroad modes, namely shipping, aviation and rail. Electrification is already playing a significant role in the reduction of carbon and pollutant emissions in the rail sector and will continue to do
33 Several logistics and food retail companies have pre-ordered electric trucks. There are 280 pre-orders from UPS, PepsiCo, Walmart and DHL (Matousek, 2018; Paez, 2019). This expected uptake is driven by the companies' willingness to make their operations "greener", as well as to reduce the total cost of ownership of the fleet.
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IEA. All rights reserved.
Global EV Outlook 2019 |
1. Status of electric mobility |
so (IEA, 2019c). While the role of electric propulsion has been less prominent so far in shipping and aviation, recent developments indicate that electricity may play a bigger role in the future.
Shipping
In the maritime transport sector, several electric ships, mainly ferries, are operating on relatively short routes. The first electric ferry, named Ampere, was put into service in Norway in 2015 (InsideEVs, 2018). The technological and economic success of the ship and its charging system (a 1.2 MW fast charging infrastructure on both shores) led to the commercialisation of a similar vessel in Finland in 2017 and to the order of several others (Corvus Energy, 2019).
Industry players such as ABB have developed battery systems to retrofit ships and are scaling up their capacity production to keep up with demand. An iconic example of ship conversion to battery electric was recently announced for the ferry service between Helsingborg, Sweden and Helsingør, Denmark (ABB, 2018). Several other projects, including commuting electric boats that operate in urban environments (e.g. Netherlands and Sweden) are emerging in the rest of Europe, as well as in North America and New Zealand.
Other solutions that combine electric propulsion and oil-fired propulsion have been emerging over the last decade. Some hybrid ships are in circulation, for instance, since 2013 between Germany and Denmark. An issue hindering the rapid conversion of ferries to an all-electric fleet is the renewal rate of the vessels, as ships usually have a life span of several decades. Regulations also play a role in electrifying the maritime sector. For instance, the restriction on emissions in the UN World Heritage fjords in Norway that mandate all-electric operations for cruise ships from 2025 has led to some electric ships already being operated (UNESCO, 2018).
Electrification is significantly more challenging for long-distance, transcontinental cargo vessels, for which the current available range of batteries is too restrictive to cover entire trips. The possibilities to power long-distance ships with batteries are explored in the EU-funded E- FERRY demonstration project (E-ferry, 2019). The project aims to demonstrate that an E-ferry equipped with a 50 tonne modular lithium-ion battery system will cover distances of more than 22 nautical miles between charges (a dramatic improvement compared to current performance of electric ferries). An E-ferry is expected to start operating between the Danish island of Ærø and the mainland in June 2019. It will be charged by an automated shore connection system that will connect as soon as the ferry docks and will require the vessel to remain portside for 15-20 minutes. In the foreseeable future, expanded use of electricity may be in the electrification of ship energy use when docked and within areas close to port or shore.34 The building of appropriate charging infrastructure at ports needs to be taken into consideration, and dockside charging infrastructure deployment can be triggered by more systematic cold ironing, at first.
Aviation
Electrification in aviation has shown encouraging progress in pilot projects in recent years, but it remains at an early stage of development. Several small battery electric powered planes are in demonstration phase, with two 2-seater plane designed by Pipistrel available on the market (Pipistrel, 2019). Current electric plane prototypes mainly have one or two seats and do not
34 The practice is called cold ironing. It helps reduce both CO2 and local pollutants emissions in ports. The fraction of dockside energy use for ships can be as high as 60% of the total ship energy use for small ships and usually ranges 10-30% for large vessels such as oil tankers, containers or cargo vessels (DNV-GL, 2018).
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