Electric trucks to become more prominent: ACT Research
COLUMBUS, Ind. – More than 100,000 electric commercial vehicles will be sold by 2035, according to a report from ACT Research.
The study, Commercial Vehicle Electrification: To Charge or Not To Charge, concludes that commercial electric vehicles will grow from a small beachhead today to a significant share of the Classes 4-8 market by 2035.
“We believe that electrification will offer a competitive solution for an increasing number of commercial vehicle segments as we look to the decade ahead and beyond,” said Jim Meil, principal, industry analysis for ACT. “Initial adoption will likely be in shorter-range hauls with frequent stops and starts, regular and predictable routes, and daily return-to-base for overnight charging types of operations. Early adopters will tend to be in medium duty and highly specialized Class 8 applications that make the current limitations of battery storage technology more manageable.”
The study reports that as battery technology advances, performance will improve and costs will drop, making a wider range of applications and duty cycles suitable for electrification.
“We see shares reaching about 20% for medium-duty and double digits for Class 8 as a ‘most likely’ case by 2035,” Meil said. “In favorable case circumstances – such as oil and diesel prices escalating as they did in 2005, 2009 and 2011 – market take rates for CEVs could get to one-third or higher, depending on the segment.”
The report can be purchased here.
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Making predictions about the future is unpredictable. While a lot of analysis and thought has been invested in determining the state of the lithium ion battery as a “game changer” for commercial vehicles displacing diesel, these analyses have not expended any resources to consider advances in diesel technology. Any accurate prediction concerning nascent technologies displacing the dominant technology should also consider the future of the dominant technology.
Diesel has shown itself over 120 years to be a highly adaptable technology capable of continual improvement. Much research and innovation resources are being invested to make the diesel engine of today even more efficient and nearer to zero in emissions. Ever hear of waste heat recovery systems, electronic piston timing or higher oil viscosity? These are just a few of the technologies engineers are hard at work testing to make the highly efficient diesel engine of today even more efficient. Will a battery cell be able to compete with these advances?