Progress on the development of electric heavy-good vehicles has been outlined at the Fleet Electrification Forum.
On a panel discussion on the issue of scaling-up eHGVs, led by Dr Isabella Panovic, Innovate UK – Programme Manager (Zero Emission Road Freight), she was joined by Acting Head of Connections Delivery at the National Highways, Russell Fowler, MD at Flexible Power Systems, Michael Ayres, Sales Director at Neertec Chris Jackson and Chief Technology Officer at Voltloader, John Whybrow.
Responding to Panovic’s comment on progress to-date, including the Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstrator (ZEHID) project, Fowler said that clearly “battery is the way to go” for logistics in decarbonisation.
He also highlighted the importance for National Highways on EV signage, stating it was useful as a “shop window”, even for those who didn’t drive EVs, and also discussed the ongoing debate about what design would be used for eHGV signage.
When asked by Panovic on the key barriers to scaling and maturity, Ayres said there was “increasing confidence that challenges can be overcome by volume” when it came to the transition to eHGVs.
He added that there was a slight “chicken and egg” situation when it came to signalling demand for the construction of charging infrastructure.
In addition, Ayres concluded preparing for the future was important, highlighting how the data centre industry had already created plans for the next decade, and “we need to do something similar for our sector”.
Jackson said that the “key word in ZEHID is ‘demonstrator'” and the challenges were “not solved, just showing what was possible”. Speaking about projects so far, he added “there is a lot of operator muscle-memory there and learning…It is really good information to help stretch the operational capabilities of the vehicles.”
Whybrow focused on his scepticism about the ability of V2G as “trucks have to be moving a lot of the time”, but said that driver breaks, and at times of loading, there were “opportunities to make the most of your use case”.
He concluded: “With electric trucks there is a lot you can do today, and the right dwell times and shifts, it is possible to deliver on parity with diesel.”
