Prices of emissions-free trucks need to fall by as much as half to make them an affordable alternative to diesel models, a study by consultancy firm McKinsey published on Wednesday said, a necessary step to help achieve European Union climate targets:
Less than 2% of the EU's heavy freight vehicles are now electric and hydrogen-powered. To meet the bloc's carbon emission reduction targets, the share should rise to 40% of new sales by 2030, the study released before the IAA Transportation 2024 truck show in Hanover showed.
Currently production costs for electric trucks are 2.5-3 times higher than for diesel ones, the study said, and with logistics firms unwilling to accept higher costs for emissions-free freight, that goal is still distant.
To overcome that, prices for new electric trucks should be no more than 30% higher than for diesel models, McKinsey said, which would require a technological leap in batteries.
For successful implementation of the EU's CO2 strategy, a 25% cut in charging costs is also needed, the study showed, with 900,000 private charging points to be installed in Europe by 2035, which would require a $20 billion investment.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Username on Wednesday September 18 2024, @10:14AM (10 children)
Tldr please make cheap trucks expensive so people will buy my trucks.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 18 2024, @10:41AM (3 children)
I mean, it would be interesting to see what happened to gas / petrol / diesel prices if the oil and gas companies didn't get massive government subsidies. Because they do, and even are the primary beneficiaries of US military adventures overseas so you could argue that the US is paying out hundreds of billions a year to keep gas prices allegedly low in their country.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 18 2024, @06:23PM (2 children)
So do the "zero emission" people. Telsa, for a glaring example, was built on those subsidies.
Thought it was the MIC that was the primary beneficiaries of US military adventures.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 18 2024, @10:32PM (1 child)
I'd be fine with a "let everyone pay the true cost of this stuff and let the markets sort it out" approach. I'm not convinced that renewables feeding electric stuff would come off looking badly in that scenario: For example, when my dad switched over to solar at his place, plus his plugin-hybrid, his energy costs dropped to $100 a year, which pretty quickly paid off the investment he'd made.
As for the MIC versus the petroleum industry with regards to the military spending: The MIC mostly benefits from supplying the US military and its allies. The petroleum industry benefits from the US and its allies choosing to use those weapons rather than put them in storage (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan, and Ukraine were all in part over oil fields and pipelines).
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 19 2024, @10:52AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 18 2024, @06:36PM (5 children)
I have long held that the cost of something is directly linked to its CO2 emissions.
Even if you spend $10K on a "zero emissions" solar array, what did that $10K go toward? Around here, $6K of it goes to the installers and sales people, paying for the fuel in their vehicles to come do the work, and giving them profit that they spend - primarily on energy directly, or products which are themselves priced in large part based on the energy required to produce them. When spent on services, the service providers take their profits and spend them on "things" that eventually trace down to energy cost. Give a man $6K for nothing, if he spends it, you have just effectively released $6K worth of energy expenditure.
Back on the $4K for these "zero emitting" solar panels which have to be shipped to the installer, manufactured, raw materials produced and ore mined - all energy intensive operations, then again at end-of-life, more energy expenditure in either re-purposing of the equipement, hopefully recycling to reduce the ore mining impacts, but also inevitably a lot of landfill filling too. Money not spent directly on energy expenditure along the way? Profits that the profit makers spend on: energy, or things that ultimately get spent on energy.
How do we stop the madness? Economic recession is a temporary way: money that sits in the bank instead of changing hands tends to lead to much less energy expenditure. Population drop is another obvious way. Oh, and we can just directly stop expending energy, like setting dwelling thermostats closer to outside temperatures, but when you do that, your power bill goes down, you've got more money leftover at the end of the month, and unless you're the type to stick that in a 401(k) or IRA, you're likely to go out and splurge that extra money - maybe on a meal out, where the wait staff and cook and restaurant owners will be taking the extra money you have given them (over and above what you would normally spend on food) and they spend it on providing a nice atmosphere for you to dine in, excess food they throw away just to make sure you experience only the best and freshest of what they can get, and they also take home some wages / profits which they most likely spend on things that boil down to: Energy.
Those people who sock away their excess cash for months at a time? Yeah, a lot of them take their savings and go in for the most direct cash to CO2 emissions conversion activity available: jet travel.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Thursday September 19 2024, @10:55AM (1 child)
Particularly with energy, there is a feedback loop; if the grid moves to non-fossil energy generation, then the energy cost of installing the kit is in itself zero emission.
i.e. the more solar that we install, the lower the carbon footprint of installing solar.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 19 2024, @12:42PM
True. We've spent a century building out this grid, it's going to take more than a couple of decades to reach that goal - particularly when you factor in components of the grid like remote ore mining sites, global transport, etc. which will be using fossil fuel much longer than Suzie Upper-middle-class home-maker and her rooftop array.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 19 2024, @11:11AM (2 children)
So if I pay $50k for an early era Magic The Gathering card, then that represents the CO2 emissions of the card? And if the seller had in turn bought the card for $1k, would that mean that there was $49k of emissions produced by that card between when the seller bought the card and when I did? Your assertion is starting to sound flawed over here. Maybe I need to adjust a knob?
Once again, we have this JoeMerchant obsession with CO2 spewing trucks [soylentnews.org]. Reminds me of the Labor Theory of Value which does the same, but boiling it down to human labor instead of CO2 emissions or energy production. Or the Money is the Root of All Evil theory which boils it all down to money.
I got this! Recognize that you described zero madness in your post that exists much less needs to be stopped. Really, this gets better when a certain poster adjusts his JoeMerchant brand optics.
Transactions happen when buyer and seller agree on a price. In an active market, the seller typically sells based on the resources and effort it took to provide the good or service plus how much demand exists. This can include CO2 emissions though that stuff tends to be pretty low cost. The buyer typically buys based on how much value the good or service has to the buyer (but perfectly willing to spend less when there's a lot of supply). I'm sure everyone will be surprised to learn that consideration of CO2 emissions are rarely part of that buy decision.
If CO2 emissions really are a serious problem, then we can simply tax them to reflect the externalities or whatnot. But you really should first show that there is a problem of that magnitude - a notable failing of the climate change industry I might add.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 19 2024, @12:39PM (1 child)
>I pay $50k for an early era Magic The Gathering card, then that represents the CO2 emissions of the card?
Read:
Even if your $50K is re-spent on more MTG cards, sooner or later the recipients of that "money for nothing" are going to have to pay their utility bill, or their rent (which the landlord uses to pay for his own energy expenditures.) The only way that $50K doesn't lead to CO2 emissions in today's world is if it is subsequently stuffed in a mattress, inaccessible to anyone.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 19 2024, @12:50PM
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2024, @10:45AM (2 children)
Scanned through the McKinsey link, looking for some indication of the extra power generation/production required by all these BEV trucks. Beyond a few references to grid upgrades, the words "utility" and "generation" do not even appear in a text search.
At the same time, the latest in fast charging standards for heavy trucks are starting to appear and each charger station can deliver on the order of a megawatt. How many new peaking plants are going to be required? What sort of local energy storage will be required in rural areas where the peak power just isn't available by wire?
Here's one of the megawatt charging standards being proposed, https://www.charin.global/technology/mcs/ [www.charin.global]
Absent some major coordination between all players including the utilities, my guess is that in a few years we are going to see a repeat of the present situation with BEV cars. As widely reported, the charging infrastructure isn't there for travel beyond the "charge at home" range. But the cause may not be broken chargers (the current reported situation for cars), instead the cause may be lack of power (from whatever combination of sources).
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Wednesday September 18 2024, @12:20PM (1 child)
The fixation on range anxiety and fast charging will have to go away.
Technically if your truck route is all 5 mile drives between stops, you only need to plug in and charge 6 miles worth of charge at each delivery point. Nobody would ever cut it that close IRL, but in theory it'll be OK. You don't need to make an extra stop at a special place to get megawatt class charging while paying the driver to watch the little charge gauge slowly climb.
The long run effect is your classic outdoor cargo lift /freight elevator thing for semi deliveries is going to come with 30 amp 220 service in the USA instead of plain old 110 and the truck will sip a KW or two while delivering your pallets of stuff, before moving on to the next stop. It'll be slightly harder to drive/park the semi because the driver will plug in for a small partial charge at each delivery. Occasionally drivers will drive off while still plugged in; stuff happens. Also charging in the rain will inevitably result in a few electrocutions until they mandate a roof over charging ports. Its just an architectural change, no big deal.
My guess is it'll be enforced by some kind of delivery surcharge, no charge plug means an extra $25 per delivery, installing the plug will eventually pay for itself if you get more than one truck delivery per week.
As for bulk aggregate power required, megawatts of solar is difficult, kilowatts of solar is cheap and easy for commercial businesses. It seems you can get "less than 2 KWh per mile" semis COTS now. So in the big city where land is expensive you need to deliver "a couple KWH" in "a fraction of an hour" which is KW-class power connector, like an RV or less. No big deal. In rural areas with cheap power you can run a diesel generator to make electricity to charge the greenwashing trucks.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 18 2024, @06:50PM
Battery swaps are an interesting thought experiment. Can batteries ever be truly commodified the way rental propane tanks have become, so that their renters don't really care how well the batteries have been cared for, they just need them for a short time until they swap them for a charged set?
I don't think so. We bought a battery powered lawn mower, apparently in 2021 according to the serial number tag I just read. I recall just a few months after we bought it, the battery died. Called up the manufacturer and they decided the battery charger was to blame, sent me a new one, and then... it didn't work either, so they sent me a replacement battery. Everything has been going well with it until this afternoon. My wife mowed some grass on Monday, didn't discharge the battery fully, just parked it - same as I have done a hundred times before (not just an expression, I'd estimate I have done roughly 100 mowing jobs since that battery arrived), and when I went to check on it it was dead. Flat dead, no response to the mower, no response to the charger, no response from the built-in charge meter - it's a brick. Other batteries we have for other tools work in the mower and the charger, so.... called the manufacturer, they are sending a replacement in 7 to 10 days. Grass can grow a lot in Florida in 7 to 10 days, but it's better than buying a spare battery - seems that the replacement batteries cost roughly the same as what I paid for the tool with battery included. Probably because under their warranty they end up supplying 3 or more batteries for every one sold.
The service advisor on the call who cheerfully put in for me to receive a free replacement battery also advised: "always remove the battery from the tool when not in use, the tool can discharge the battery even when not in use, sometimes to damaging levels" Also: "never store or charge the battery in a hot place (like a tool shed or garage), please place the charger in a climate controlled environment." Yeah, so when this obviously flaky 60V 5A lithium bomb decides to go off, it will be in our house instead of a detached shed or garage - you cover home replacements too?
Anyway, point being, batteries that people coddle like that probably are a lot cheaper TCO than ones that are "rode hard and put away wet." so, in an exchange system, the participants are going to experience some tragedy of the commons whereby they're paying the cost associated with abused batteries, not the costs experienced by people like the Tesla owner who has driven 500K miles on his original battery pack. It's quite a bit harder to abuse a rental propane tank enough to shorten its already statutory 10 year useful life - though I wonder about people who use them in the salt spray near the beach....
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Disagree) by VLM on Wednesday September 18 2024, @12:22PM (2 children)
At some point, it'll be cheaper for Euros to reduce emissions by either a military invasion of heavy pollution Asian countries (a land invasion to Peking?) or by finishing the replacement of their population with people who don't care about greenwashing, which they're doing right now. North Africans don't seem very interested in virtue signalling about greenwashing scams, and once they replace the legacy euros, the entire problem will go away, nobody will care about trucks because Europe will no longer have a functioning economy or civilization.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 18 2024, @01:47PM (1 child)
You know, it takes some gall (pun intended) to complain about, say, Algerians in France when the reason they are there is that France invaded and took over Algeria and made the place part of France for about a century. Many of the origin stories of other black Europeans are similar: They migrated from Africa to Europe when their countries and the European country were the same country, often as part of serving in the European country's army.
But I wouldn't expect somebody like you who by all appearances casually equates "civilization" and "white people" to understand nuances like that.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 18 2024, @04:25PM
If the legacy Europeans don't like my comments, that's OK because they decided to replace themselves so they won't be around long LOL
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday September 18 2024, @03:38PM (3 children)
Until such time as 100% of electricity is generated by renewables, EV vehicles will generate pollution, just not where they happen to be located.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 18 2024, @04:54PM (1 child)
This is partially correct in that even renewables create pollution and CO2 during the capex and recycling stages. Sometimes enormous amounts, consider "carbon neutral" burning of biomass, but farming and food transport is never pollution-free. Some stuff like growing food to turn it into burnable ethanol is an environmental disaster, but we do it anyway for greenwashing politics.
Back in the WAY OLD DAYS like the 70s, early solar panels were so incredibly bad they took more electrical power to make than they could generate over the life of the panel. Perhaps it is still the case for something like a solar powered calculator or solar powered garden light. This has not been the case for primary power generation panels (like on a roof) for decades, although panel manufacture and transport and installation is hardly pollution-free.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday September 19 2024, @02:16AM
Well I didn't say we shouldn't switch to EV. They're totally better then ICE, no question. But strictly-speaking they're not emissions-free, is all I said.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday September 20 2024, @08:34PM
True, but you know what? The environment is the least of the EV's many advantages over pistons! Only a rich man like Gore would buy one for the environment, who are they trying to fool?
I bought one last September, a Hyundai, just so I wouldn't have stand in far below freezing weather babysitting it while it fueled, I plugged it into the 110v outlet outside my house (it was there when I moved in 15 years ago). If they hadn't done away with full service gas stations I wouldn't have bought it and would have remained ignorant. Also, heat came on as fast as air conditioning in the summer instead of when the engine's warmed up by the time you get to where you're going. Hadn't thought of that before I bought it.
I've been driving since 1968 and never drove a car that handled as well, all that weight under the floorboard gives it an extremely low center of gravity.
I never drove a car that braked anywhere near as well, thanks to its having two sets of brakes working in tandem.
I owned a '74 Le Mans once, the Ioniq was a smaller car but much roomier.
Gasoline is three to five times as expensive per mile as electricity. There are no oil changes or any other drive train maintenance. Brakes will last far longer because most of its braking is regenerative.
The only environmental thing that mattered to me was that it would never stink unless someone threw up in it. Once those valves or rings start going out... They're getting electric school busses here, I cheered when I heard it because the exhaust from the ones they have STINKS.
My EV was totaled last month, so for the time being I'm stuck with a ten year old Subaru gas burner. I REALLY miss my EV and will be replacing it as soon as possible. The electric car is to a piston car what a model-T was to a horse and buggy, for many of the same reasons; expense and annoyance of the old technology.
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday September 20 2024, @08:11PM
I didn't read TFA, but from the blurb it seems that this is a badly flawed study that didn't take into account the difference in cost between diesel fuel and electricity, which is far cheaper per mile than diesel, or the lack of the diesel engine drive train's need for costly maintenance. For instance, what's an oil change for a Peterbilt cost? EV drive trains need no maintenance.
How about someone do a real study, done by and not paid for by someone not in the automotive, oil, parts, or repair industries that include all of the necessary variables?
also:
"Charging costs" are the cost of the electricity itself, not the cost of the infrastructure. How much did all those diesel pumps cost?
This "study" is simply propaganda.
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.