Volvo (which is BTW one of the more optimistic companies) is still today excluding long-haul trucks from being fully electric, and they have just started production of short-haul and "regional" electric trucks.
And of course full self-driving is still beyond the horizon.
BTW, and only as a side note, traditional trucks already use engine braking or retarders extensively, so I don't think that regenerative braking will change much when it comes to the amount of brake dust.
Hybrids seem to me like a net win all around for at least some use cases. I'm not sure where the value proposition is breaking down (or if anyone's even put in the effort to figure out whether it actually is breaking down).
Surely there can be particular routes/scenarios where hybrids may offer an advantage, but it is not (at least to me) very clear which ones they are.
Using a hybrid, you get back a lot of the maintenance hassle and on top of that your fuel is again more expensive. It's basically most of the downsides of an ICE truck without most of the upsides of a full battery electric truck. So, the business case for hybrid trucks is just a lot more murky. I'm sure there will be some companies that will try this but the money is going to be in full battery electric.
> you get back a lot of the maintenance hassle and on top of that your fuel is again more expensive
The entire value proposition of hybrids is that they both reduce the amount of required maintenance on the ICE part (plus the brakes) and reduce the amount of fuel needed-- while maintaining all the flexibility of ICE vehicles. As a bonus, they require far fewer batteries than full electrics at a time when battery supply is clearly going to be constrained for the foreseeable future.
Fully electric trucks will have trouble anywhere with long stretches of cold weather. Operating outside of their ideal temperature zone will result in much lower efficiency, exacerbated by the weight of the batteries remaining the same regardless of charge level.
I think there are ideal niches for both approaches. Honestly, I also think most pure ICE drivetrains should be converted over to varying types of hybrids in the long run, because it almost always seems to be a net win to me... but I could be wrong. Would love to see more R&D put into it, in any case.
Is that a net win? It reduces maintenance on the brakes, it may reduce maintenance on the ICE, and it adds a whole bunch of new stuff to maintain. Does anyone have data on the net effect? Does anyone have data for trucks?
Nikola advertises a battery electric heavy truck with 330 miles of range. Nikola and Volvo seems to still be pretending that they are going to use hydrogen but at the same time they are selling a lot of battery electric at this point and not a whole lot of hydrogen trucks. Mostly ranges are creeping up to the point where drivers must stop to take a break anyway that is long enough to top the battery up. So, the range anxiety argument is simply not there. It's a pure cost driven thing. And it's not like hydrogen fueling is particularly fast or cheap.
Of course, a lot of companies are opting for shorter range trucks because they are much cheaper and because that suits their needs. Long haul electric trucks are more expensive. Because of the extra batteries. So, yes, the sweet spot of the market is short haul, for now. But there's nothing inherently hard about longer range trucks. It's just a cost and supply chain issue. As battery production scales and prices come down further, we'll see more companies dip their toes into long haul.
Self driving is a thing that multiple electric truck and van companies are talking about at this point as something that they want to do. It's still pretty far out but it's not that much harder than self driving cars. But as I said, the bigger challenge here is simply replacing fleets which is an inherently slow process. But of course that's exactly where the money is going to be for manufacturers.
Not entirely unlike existing multi-trailer (used on some roads in Australia), so called Road Trains, but limited to two trailers, the main one and the battery trailer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_train
the truck would enter the highway, stop at a service station, add a "powerpack" battery trailer, drive until the next station, swap battery trailer as many times as needed, then leave it at the last service station before destination.
ICE trucks are really hard to operate. You are basically micro managing the gears, dealing with lot of fairly complex bit of equipment, etc. Electric trucks basically have no gears, heaps of torque and don't really require much more than just pointing them in the right direction. Apparently as easy as driving a normal car.
So, electrification strikes me as a core requirement for self driving. And of course electric trucks are also more environmentally friendly. Less brake dust (regenerative braking) and less emissions. And the batteries are recycled at the end of their life. So there's that.
The shift to electric trucks is already happening of course but its very capital intensive. Millions of trucks with a price tag of hundreds of thousands each means a lot of capital will have to be expended. Trillions basically. That alone will ensure it will take quite long to complete. A decade minimum before most new trucks are electric and then at least another decade before most ICE trucks have been retired. And the first generations won't be self driving. So these new trucks would be in service for a decade plus before being swapped out for self driving ones. So, if that takes another decade to happen, we're talking 30-40 years. Minimum. But with the first ones on the road as early as less than a decade from now. It's going to be a slow process.
Insurance is basically about risk. Insurance companies like to minimize risk and maximize profits. An electric truck that is less likely to break down regularly is less risky and would on paper require a lower insurance fee. And then a self driving truck is less likely to get into accidents or other liability related issues. Which again means lower fees. So, that helps.