Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - October 2024 - 14

BROWNOUT FOR
COMMERCIAL-VEHICLE
ELECTRIFICATION?
Truck OEMs invested in infrastructure
Truck manufacturers have not sat idly by as
charging infrastructure lags behind the growing
availability of battery-electric commercial
vehicles. Take for example Daimler Truck
North America's (DTNA) Greenlane joint
venture, which announced earlier this year
plans for its first commercial EV charging
corridor with more than 100 chargers. The
280-mile (450-km) stretch along Interstate
15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas will
begin with initial locations in Colton, Barstow
and Baker, California.
Expected to open in the fourth quarter of
2024, the Colton flagship site is planned to
have more than 60 chargers, including 400kW
direct current fast chargers (DCFC) as well
as 200-kW DCFC options for long-duration
and overnight charging. The site will be " future-proofed "
to accommodate the Megawatt
Charging System (MCS) when commercially
available and to eventually provide hydrogen
refueling for commercial vehicles.
" That's something we wouldn't have done
a few years back, but we decided we just can't
sit on the sideline and say, 'We have a truck.
That's good enough.' We wanted to participate
in trying to solve that infrastructure problem, "
John O'Leary, president and CEO at DTNA,
said at the 2024 ACT Expo during a CEO
Roundtable on Scaling Vehicle Electrification
that also included executives from Volvo
Trucks, Paccar, Navistar and Mack Trucks.
Three of those truck makers - DTNA,
Navistar and Volvo - teamed in early 2024 to
establish the Powering America's Commercial
Transportation (PACT) coalition as a " unified
voice " to accelerate the construction of refueling
infrastructure for medium- (MD) and
heavy-duty (HD) zero-emission vehicles. The
group, which had 24 founding members including
the likes of Amazon, Cummins and
WattEV, aims to convince lawmakers and
stakeholders of the urgency of the situation.
" Because it seems that just left to its own
devices, it's not happening fast enough, "
O'Leary said, stressing that DTNA does not
Greenlane's first commercial EV charging corridor will be along Interstate 15 between Los Angeles
and Las Vegas. Groundbreaking for the flagship site in Colton, California, occurred in September.
want to put the onus completely on its customers.
" We know, that's not their area of
expertise. They're moving freight; they're not
in the business of building charging depots,
so we're trying to help wherever we can. "
Volvo also partnered with Pilot Company
nearly two years ago to help develop a national
public charging network for MD and
HD electric trucks utilizing existing Pilot and
Flying J travel centers.
" Partnership is the new leadership, " said
Peter Voorhoeve, president of Volvo Trucks
North America. He said the companies work
together to identify which travel centers
should be prioritized based on current and
anticipated battery-electric truck deployment
volume, customers' charging needs and patterns,
and the availability of federal and state
funding to support capital costs.
" Three or four years ago, we were seeing
electric trucks being deployed and no infraAt
the Decarbonizing Freight Transportation panel session during
Carnegie Mellon University's Energy Week 2024 in Pittsburgh earlier
this year, Carly Dobbins-Buckland, senior manager at Ford Pro
Charging, confirmed that early infrastructure investments have been
daunting for some of its customers. Ford Pro, with some 100,000 distinct
fleet customers, addresses " huge variation " in use cases and operational
design domain (ODD), she said, but in many projects, customers
installing new charging infrastructure are seeing costs up to
five times initial projections - and similar multiples for time to install.
14 October 2024
structure. We've all done our industry partnerships
and various things to help our customers
enable that, " said Jason Skoog, president
and general manager at Peterbilt.
" What I think is a good thing is the whole
industry is talking about infrastructure right
now. We cannot talk about infrastructure
enough because it is the pacing item today. "
The executives agreed that having a collaborative
approach to the issue is essential.
" Even though we've invested many billions
between all our companies, there's many
more billions that we can't afford to take on
additionally, " O'Leary said. " So, the best way
is to partner up and share that. We still fiercely
compete every day in the marketplace, but
we've evolved enough, we're committed
enough to the effort to put aside [any] past
differences to say, 'Hey, this is a bigger mission
that we're going after.' "
Ryan Gehm
Cost for whom?
The CFC study's nearly $1-trillion figure is provocative
but doesn't address how charging infrastructure's direct
costs ultimately will be borne. The federal government's
Joint Office of Energy and Transportation announced
in March 2024 a national Zero-Emissions Freight
Corridor Strategy that between now and 2040 seeks to
establish 49,000 miles (78,800 km) of roadways to
TRUCK & OFF-HIGHWAY ENGINEERING
GREENLANE

Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - October 2024

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