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Blog 30 - EV Trucking Hell!

"Fuelcard Frank"
Blog 30 - EV Trucking Hell!

With the pressure placed on Operators to ‘go green’  many will already have been looking at EV Trucks for the future.  Is it a good option?  I watched a TV consumer program called Fifth Gear Recharged which promotes EV’s of all kinds from micro 2 seaters and in this particular episode up to a 40 ton Class 1 HGV, in this instance from Volvo.  In the UK we can have 44 tons of course.

This was tested at Volvo’s own test track in Sweeden with their test driver explaining to the presented all about it.  The presented found that the cab was amazing with lots of space, technology and comfort and no gear stick in the middle. Selecting forward gear was a touchscreen operation as was most other items.  The truck pulled away almost silently and very smoothly with plenty of power.  It climbed a steep hill with no problems and generally drove well.  All positive attributes seeming proving this is the way to go.  Then the rub!

This truck carried 8 tons of batteries, aprox trice the weight of a conventional ICE engine and drivetrain, so that reduces the payload and associated income from carrying it.
The range was just aprox 200 miles, about one third of what you mat expect from a diesel truck, and quite a considerable downtime recharging 8 tons of batteries unless you can find an incredibly fast charger, which doesn’t as yet exist.

The most horrendous aspect is the cost.  The Volvo EV HGV1 truck costs £290,000, aprox £95,000 more expensive than their equivalent Volvo HGV1 Diesel truck.


Now with £95,000 you could purchase around 80,000 litres (17600 gallons) of diesel, and if your HGV1 truck does just 10 MPG as stated by Adam @adam200784 on YouTube. 

(**referring to the Fifth Gear Recharged EV test which can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3EA6Y5CT2E )  you have a range of 176,000 miles before you make up the difference and that’s with out any recharging costs for the EV or road tax at the various levels (*as we don’t know the EV figure yet and it will increase over time).

At The Fuelcard Centre Ltd we also offer the opportunity to FREEZE your diesel price for up to a year at a time with regular weekly/monthly payments spread over the entire volume purchased, have a look at: www.fuelcardcentre.co.uk/futuresfuelcard to see if this would benefit your business.

So, great in principle but as with EV cars the industry and the government are expecting us to pay for their development costs.  One day it may be a viable option, just not yet a while!

Fuelcard Frank
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