Both companies had a huge moat until Amazon came along blew their doors off. And Amazon has been investing heavily in electric delivery vehicles: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/18/amazon-begins-testing-rivian...
Both Nikola and Tesla are vapourware today. Perhaps they might deliver in a couple of years realistically.
Delivery companies are in no hurry to shift and bet ahead of time, once the technology is readily available and well supported they will move their fleet
Germany might gain it's first green-party led government this year and they are racking up wins in a lot of countries in europe. I even see the rise of smaller "greener than green" parties here in southern germany. This might change the regulatory environment/taxes enough to fuel change.
I don't think Volvo and Daimler make uniformed bets, so there must be some reasoning behind it.
It's probably fair to contrast the EU vs. the USA for this. Given the geographic and political differences, I can see where a European market for trucks might be sufficient for the manufacturers to fund development efforts. I should have been clear that I was thinking primarily of the US, living here and all.
It would be interesting to have a better overview on freight handling in the rest of the world. China tends to be left out of these discussions and I can't imagine wide swathes of Asia or Africa changing anytime soon.
"The Swedish truck-maker is aiming for half its European sales in 2030 to be trucks powered by batteries or hydrogen fuel cells"
"About 300 high-performance hydrogen refueling points would be needed in Europe by 2025"
I'm sure there's enough of a market in Europe for different trucks — there's already different designs and different fuel preferences (diesel/gasoline).
Absolutely. Look at the heavy buy-in on diesel automobiles, and they sure weren't shy about subsidies/regulations to favor them.
Yeah, that government intervention worked out well :p
Volvo is a Chinese-owned company. While the company is headquartered and led in Sweden, it is safe to assume that the Chinese market is a strong consideration in everything they do.
Volvo Cars is owned directly by Geely, but is not a subsidiary of AB Volvo. Which is probably where your confusion is coming from.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo they remain an independent company with Geely as their second largest shareholder at 8.2%.
More complete breakdown here: https://www.volvogroup.com/en/investors/the-volvo-share/owne...
They are independent companies, but they share an owner.
That is enough reason for them to put money into R&D. It might or might not result in anything for many different reasons.
Public transit in many places has already switched to propane/LNG. Same with lots of municipal work trucks.
Your first sentence is the attitude he's responding to: That trucking/logistics/cityworks are able to make their own refueling stations, build their own support infrastructure, etc. in ways that the public cannot, on the short term.
Because I haven't seen a single electric truck of any type by any service. Perhaps someone here has, love to hear about it. Since my wife is a shipping manager for a manufacturer, there is some anecdotal backing. (jeesh, why are people so religious about this stuff?).
I don't doubt that they are planning a long term move at places like Fedex, but articles on it lead me to believe they are just dipping their toe in the water. A moon shot to accomplish something by 2040 is the opposite of all-in, they may not exist as a company in 20 years.
In any case, as I was alluding to, short-haul trucking will electrify far before long-haul, for obvious reasons (and if it ever does)...at least for purely economic reasons. All bets are off if the hand of the state dictates a technology.
> Your first sentence is the attitude he's responding to
lol. What? That I doubt that you'll see hydrogen fueled long-haul trucking in the US? Care to make a bet on it? What is your time horizon on the bet?
The Fedex fleet is a little over 1% electric...and that includes forklifts and airport equipment.
Like I keep saying, they'll be all over this tech when it really pencils out.
Fedex Plans to Electrify its Entire Fleet of Delivery Vehicles by 2040" [1]
"UPS Orders 10000 Electric Delivery Trucks..." [2]
[1] https://fordauthority.com/2021/03/fedex-plans-to-electrify-i...
[2] https://www.boston.com/cars/car-news/2020/03/22/ups-orders-1...
I really can't foresee how it turns out, hopefully the battery tech has some room to run.
A lot of folks have toes in the water with Tesla semi orders, though. I expect that to grow pretty quickly if the first ones work well for regional distribution, and that is really their strength.
That new fangled "diesel" stuff is really hard to beat for long distance trucking.
Indeed, and earlier we discussed plans for battery electric trucks by Volvo (one of the company's described in this article):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24999239
Batteries for short-haul, hydrogen (or something else) for long-haul.
You're probably right, although I'd probably go short on hydrogen in trucks. It seems hard to store, transport, requires a new infrastructure, etc. I expect they'll use this new fangled technology called 'diesel'.
I'm surprised when I don't hear more about the lower hanging fruit. The fact that Fedex/UPS haven't gone wholesale into electric is telling at this point, I expect they'll do it when some spreadsheet shows 10 cents in savings companywide. The champions for electric trucks should push for trash pickup, route sales, local delivery, etc. and not bother with long haul for now.
You could argue that a good place for hydrogen would be non-electric trains. When the bugs get worked out of that perhaps long distance trucking might have a chance.
edit: as an aside, I can see where large scale fleet decisions might be held back by fear of technology change. You'd sure hate to buy thousands of trucks only to have them made obsolete by some sort of large underlying change in design that's a no-brainer.
It wouldn't surprise me if there isn't a certain braking effect on vehicle purchases generally because of the advances in EVs. There's a righteous fear in being an early adopter.