Potential for rapid adoption of battery-electric heavy-duty trucks for pre- and post-haulage at intermodal terminals

Abstract

Battery-electric heavy-duty trucks (BEHDTs) offer significant carbon savings compared to diesel trucks, yet they pose certain challenges with regard to their range and charging needs. As the takeup is extremely low, representing around 1% of new sales, the motivation of this paper is to investigate how this takeup can be accelerated. The research gap analysed is to explore the potential for BEHDTs for pre- and post-haulage (PPH) of containers to and from an intermodal terminal, as the relatively short distances and regular returns to a central location may be well suited to ameliorate the challenges of BEHDTs.Previous authors have studied the potential of BEHDTs based on assumptions and simulations, and they have noted the need for empirical studies. This paper aims to fill that gap using empirical data collected from an entire fleet of 21 trucks serving a terminal over a full year. The distances, loads and stopping times are evaluated against the parameters of the current generation of BEHDTs with battery capacity around 400–500 kWh.Results show that it would be possible to switch at least 50% of trips to BEHDTs immediately, saving approximately 13,000 t of CO2 annually at this one location, and this figure could rise to 75% in a couple of years as battery capacity increases and more fast chargers are available. The study concludes that the PPH intermodal container market is ideal for early adoption of BEHDTs, due to the short-medium distances per trip, several round trips to and from the terminal where the chargers are located, and sufficient waiting time during loading and unloading to charge the vehicles without impacting on vehicle productivity.