Daimler Truck AG board member and head of truck technology, Dr. Andreas Gorbach, shares his thoughts on the difficulties faced by commercial vehicle manufacturers and operators in the face of an increasingly tough European legislative environment.
To ensure that commercial vehicles can keep our economy and society moving in the future, commercial vehicle manufacturers are investing billions to make them emission-free. The vehicles are ready – but manufacturers are still facing draconian penalties. Meanwhile, Europe is increasingly being challenged by non-European competitors. What is currently going wrong? And what matters now?
What’s it all about?
Trucks and buses are and will remain the backbone of our economy and society. Commercial vehicles deliver to supermarkets, pharmacies, construction sites, factories and hospitals, put out fires and bring emergency supplies to crisis areas, empty garbage cans, deliver parcels – and they take people to work, on vacation or our children to school.
More than 70% of everyday products are transported by trucks in Europe. Unlike a car, the purchase of a commercial vehicle is first and foremost a rational investment decision. Customers are entrepreneurs running their businesses on small margins – they have to earn money by operating a truck or bus.
In Europe, around six million trucks and around 900,000 buses are in daily use – and the trend is rising. By 2040, freight transportation by truck in Germany is expected to increase by 34% – and it can hardly be substituted by rail, ship or air. The economic strength of a country is directly linked to freight transportation – when the gross domestic product increases, so does the number of trucks on the road.
With almost 60 million tonnes of diesel consumed per year, six million trucks are also responsible for around 7% of European CO₂ emissions.
Battery-electric and hydrogen-powered trucks and buses are needed for CO₂ – neutral transportation – carbon-neutral fuels can also play a role.
If we wanted to switch 6,000,000 trucks in Europe completely to battery-electric drive, we would need around 350TWh (terawatt hours) of green energy per year to charge them. For comparison: Germany’s total electricity demand in 2023 was around 500TWh.
The necessary expansion of the high-voltage grids would be far too time-consuming and cost-intensive. Ten megawatts is required to charge long-haul trucks simultaneously at a public rest area in around 45 minutes – and, in turn, the planning and construction for only one such facility takes up to ten years.
Battery-electric vehicles alone will therefore not be able to decarbonise at the speed required to achieve the European CO₂ targets for trucks (minus 45% in the new vehicle fleet compared to 2019).
At the same time, independently of the commercial vehicle industry, a global trade in green energy (comparable to today’s trade in gas and oil) will emerge, especially regarding hydrogen. This is because there is enough sun and wind in the world to produce enough hydrogen to cover the entire demand.
For commercial vehicles, hydrogen-based drives are the ideal technology to complement battery-electric drives. Depending on the transportation task, battery or hydrogen (with fuel cell or internal combustion engine) can be the more economical solution for our customers.
In addition, the development of a charging and refuelling infrastructure for both technologies is faster and more cost-effective than the massive expansion of infrastructure for just one technology. And if the required hydrogen is produced in sunny regions, for example, this high efficiency in production compensates for the lower efficiency due to higher conversion losses compared to battery drives. What is known as the “sun-to-wheel” efficiency is therefore the same.
Today, Europe is a leader in hydrogen and fuel cell technology. In contrast to battery cells, Europe can be the global technology leader here in the long term. Thus, an investment in these technologies is an investment in Europe’s future competitiveness. In addition to batteries and fuel cells as emission-free drive technologies, hydrogen combustion engines and “carbon-neutral fuels” (CNF) such as hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) can also play a role in reducing CO₂ emissions.
This especially applies to applications that are difficult to electrify with batteries or fuel cells, e.g. harvesting, construction or defence vehicles. Internal combustion engines for trucks will still be needed here in the long term. CNFs can already be used in the decarbonisation of the existing fleet and can generally be credited towards achieving the CO₂ targets of the commercial vehicle industry.
Emission-free vehicles are ready, but manufacturers still face draconian penalties – because there is a lack of cost parity and infrastructure for the vehicles.
The commercial vehicle industry has been investing billions in decarbonisation for years. All manufacturers have already achieved a great deal. At Daimler Truck, eleven battery-electric truck and bus models are in series production worldwide, as well as a battery-electric city bus with an additional fuel cell for greater range.
But, high prices for green energy and the very low number of public charging and hydrogen refuelling stations are currently slowing down decarbonisation. Commercial vehicle manufacturers have little to no influence on either of these factors. Manufacturers therefore do not have full control over whether they achieve the specified CO₂ targets for 2030.
Should they not achieve the targets, the penalties are more than ten times higher per ton of CO₂ than in the passenger car industry.
It is important to understand that the commercial vehicle business is fundamentally different from the passenger car business. Customers buy trucks and buses with a calculator. They are running their businesses on small margins, so they buy the vehicle that is the most profitable to operate.
