P3 report: The most important lessons learnt by electric truck pioneers
The 42-page ‘P3 Energy Excellence /Trucks Report’ is based on interviews with industry insiders who have taken the first steps towards battery-electric mobility in their logistics companies. The document focuses explicitly on heavy goods vehicles in the N3 vehicle class, meaning commercial vehicles with a total weight of more than 12 tonnes. P3 interviewed Sascha Hähnke (Remondis) and representatives of Elflein Holding GmbH, Hermes Germany GmbH, Hugelshofer Logistik AG and the NOSTA Group for the report. The study’s creators condensed the practical descriptions with information on the respective fleet characteristics of the companies, their operating profiles and the existing charging infrastructure – and drew generalisable lessons “to drive forward fleet electrification on a broad scale even faster.”
P3 describes the interview method as an explorative approach to get to the bottom of the still-young market. In this respect, the report does not claim to shed light on the actual and target situation of electrification. Instead, it takes a logistics perspective and aims to provide a market overview of current trends and challenges of electric mobility in the logistics sector – and to show other companies ways to tackle the transformation to CO2-free logistics.
Push and pull factors
On the first pages, an interview with Remondis Managing Director Sascha Hähnke provides insights into the development of electric mobility in the road transport sector in Germany. Hähnke’s descriptions of the hurdles and catalysts of electrification form the basis for highlighting the perspectives of four logistics companies with different operational profiles.
As a quintessence, P3 extracts so-called push and pull factors, or certain incentives for logistics pioneers to electrify their fleets. Push factors arise from external pressure or regulatory requirements, while pull factors are incentives and economic advantages that promote the switch to electric drives from within.
The most important push factors identified by the authors are internal company sustainability targets, EU emissions regulations, congestion charges and taxation. The main pull factors are tendering and customer requirements, the company’s image and the lower total cost of ownership of electric trucks. Interestingly, the interviewees did not consider government support to be a decisive factor in their decision to switch to electric vehicles. Nevertheless, the abrupt discontinuation of funding programmes in Germany was perceived as negative.
In general, P3 identified the lack of planning certainty as the biggest pain point – especially with regard to the political framework conditions and the toll rates, “which made investments more difficult.” The report continues: “There are also difficulties in setting up charging infrastructure at the depot, from bureaucratic processes to long delivery times for charging hardware and vehicles.”
Change is not just a question of external pressure
The electric mobility constant group concludes that regulatory requirements and economic and customer incentives drive the electrification of truck fleets in the logistics sector. “While sustainability goals and emissions targets are currently the strongest push factors, pull factors such as the total cost of ownership and specific customer requirements are becoming increasingly important. The transition to zero-emission logistics is therefore not just a question of external pressure, but also a strategic decision with long-term economic benefits.”
One of the most remarkable statements in the report is that logistics companies should even take on the role of energy manager and charge point operator in the depot. This is “a key lever for reducing costs is to set up their own charging infrastructure, ideally in conjunction with generating their own electricity, particularly through photovoltaic systems,” writes P3. Combining self-generation, intelligent energy management systems and flexible electricity purchasing could significantly reduce energy costs in the depot. In addition, battery buffer storage could help to make the self-generated or cheaply purchased electricity usable outside of production and touring times, for example, at night.
Who still needs to get on board
Of course, the industry must move forward together with the manufacturers and with the support of politicians and other players, such as the grid operators. The Truck Report thus also addresses the demands made by logistics companies on various stakeholders in the interviews. Unsurprisingly, the interviewees call on politicians to create clear and long-term framework conditions. However, network operators, vehicle OEMs, charging hardware manufacturers, and logistics customers must also do their homework from the logistics experts’ point of view to initiate change on a broad basis.
Sebastian Gieschen, P3 expert and co-author of the report, summarises: “The pioneers of the report show what energy excellence can look like. Everyone has understood that it will be important to manage energy flows themselves in the future. In addition to their actual core competencies, logistics companies will also become energy managers; operators of charging infrastructure for their own and external vehicles.” The resulting competitive advantage is based on hardware and vehicles and increasingly on intelligent software. “The pioneers are already working on combining data […] to enable intelligent charging planning, the optimization of electricity purchases and the allocation of ‘charging slots‘ to carriers or partners using a reservation system.”
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