Future Trucking: Headlines and View from the Bridge

June 11, 2024

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by Allen Schaeffer (Engine Technology Forum) By all accounts, the 2024 Advanced Clean Truck Expo in Las Vegas last month laid it all on the line; peering into the fuels and technologies that promise to be the future of the trucking industry.

On display was an array of technology, opinions, and current thinking about the future of clean transportation. Product announcements and perspectives from established truck OEMs and suppliers reflected decades of experience serving their fleet customers a diverse array of solutions. Some new players took a different approach urging fleets to “step up their electric game,” even as the media called out the ‘hype’ of overpromising and underdelivering on some all-electric options.

Internal combustion engines weren’t left out. New fuel agnostic engine platforms that can be designed for diesel, natural gas, or hydrogen and the near-term opportunities from the use of renewable fuels were also on display.

The transportation media consumed it all and their headlines captured the optimism and uncertainties of the future colliding with the realities of the moment:

Trucking Faces ‘Peak Complexity’ on the Road to a Greener Future
ACT Expo 2024 Takeaways: Sustainability Goals, Meet Financial Realities
Customers will determine mass adoption of new tech: Ryder CEO
Magical Thinking won’t take trucking to Net Zero Emissions
JB Hunt President: Cutting Carbon Emissions Now – Without Electric Trucks
Heavy-Duty Hybrid Powertrains make a comeback at ACT Expo
Heavy Duty EV Adoption must include Carbon Pricing
Cummins Showcases innovation: Cummins HELM™ 15-liter fuel agnostic platform
Hydrogen, electric and autonomous technologies dominate ACT expo, and for the future of trucking
Volvo Trucks Showcases Next-Generation Technology and Solutions at ACT Expo 2024, Setting New Standards in Transportation Innovation
Check out Volvo’s ‘superhuman’ autonomous VNL
Isuzu To Launch Zero Emission, Battery- Electric Medium Duty (Class 6 & 7) Trucks in North America Utilizing Accelera by Cummins Powertrain
Achates demonstrates up to 20% efficiency improvement vs. today’s engines while meeting ultra-low NOx standards with today’s aftertreatment
Tesla to Trucking Industry: Step up your electric game.
Tesla Semi: Will it ever live up to the hype?

Some of the vibe coming from the truck show news reflects the same reality now facing automakers in the passenger car segment, where falling EV sales even in the face of many new product launches reflect a new reality for the market. The industry’s renewed interest in hybrid electric options is one response, and a growing interest in hydrogen for use in internal combustion engines is generating increased interest.

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The good news is that the trucking industry has many diverse options to deliver the goods, not the least of which is advanced internal combustion engines running on renewable low carbon diesel or natural gas fuels. READ MORE

Related articles

Trucking Faces ‘Peak Complexity’ on Road to a Greener Future (Transport Topics)
J.B. Hunt President: Cutting Carbon Emissions Now — Without Electric Trucks (HDT truckinginfo)
CUMMINS FUEL-AGNOSTIC ENGINE PLATFORM DELIVERS LOW-TO-ZERO CARBON FUEL CAPABILITY (Cummins)
Volvo Trucks North America Announces Availability of CARB 2024 Omnibus Compliant Heavy-Duty Engine (Volvo)

Excerpt from Transport Topics: During the course of the show, leaders from various truck makers, suppliers and fleet operators voiced differing opinions on the best strategies and technologies for reducing carbon emissions, but in general, most agreed that the road ahead will not always be a smooth one.

A panel discussion featuring top executives from five of the six market-leading Class 8 truck brands in North America highlighted both the massive industry investments in zero-emission technologies and the staying power of the internal combustion engine.

Jason Skoog, general manager at Peterbilt Motors Co., said the diesel engine will remain trucking’s primary powertrain for quite some time.

“The diesel business is not dead, and it’s going to have a very long tail on top of it,” he said.

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The pace of adoption for battery-electric trucks has been held back by factors such as vehicle cost, range and payload limitations and, above all, the scarcity of charging infrastructure and questions about the readiness of the electrical grid.

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Carmaker Honda signaled its interest in bringing its fuel cell technology to the commercial truck market by exhibiting a Class 8 fuel cell electric concept truck at the show.

Other companies also have been lining up to supply the trucking industry with fuel cell systems, including Cummins, Bosch, Toyota, Hyundai, Nikola Corp., Hyzon, Symbio and Cellcentric, a joint venture of Daimler Truck and Volvo Trucks.

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The market brief found that renewable diesel consumption increased 68% last year and renewable natural gas producers opened more than 150 new facilities.

Along the way, profits from diesel truck sales are funding the ongoing development and rollout of zero-emission vehicles. READ MORE

Excerpt from HDT truckinginfo: Electrification is not trucking’s best decarbonization option right now, says Shelley Simpson, president of J.B. Hunt Transport Services.

Using examples from her own operation, she suggests fleets would do better by expanding the use of existing fuel-saving technologies, reducing empty and unproductive miles, and using biogenic fuels.

Speaking at ACT Expo in Las Vegas, Simpson said electrification is presently far too expensive for the benefits it produces, and the trucks themselves are uncompetitive and inefficient. Acquisition costs are up to three times that of a diesel, there are payload penalties of between 4,000 and 12,000 pounds, and charging time and frequency renders them very unproductive compared to diesels.

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Eye-Popping Numbers About Energy Needed for Electric Trucks

Her pointed rebuttal to what has become industry doctrine continued with an eye-popping illustration of how desperately short we are on the energy needed to power fleets of electric trucks.

Citing research from the American Transportation Research Institute, Simpson said we would need 40% more electricity than is currently generated in the U.S. today to charge the 276 million registered cars and truck in this country if they were all electric.

“In order to fast-charge a single electric truck, you would need the same amount of energy it takes to power 600 homes.

“To put that into perspective, the fast-charging infrastructure needed to support J.B. Hunt’s entire fleet, if it was all electric, would be the same as that required by 1.4 million households, or about 1% of the U.S. population.

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To date, Simpson said, they have already achieved a 16% reduction in carbon emissions, the single largest contributor to those reductions being the use of biogenic fuels such as biodiesel, renewable diesel, and renewable natural gas.

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Simpson said customers are interested in moving their freight more sustainably, but there’s some lack of understanding of extent of the carbon footprint associated with zero-emissions transportation.

“The carbon footprint associated with producing the [electric] truck can be four to five times more than diesel [trucks],” she said.

“And you also have to consider the carbon footprint of generating and distributing electricity. When you combine this with the operational inefficiencies, they can see the impact of [zero emissions] might not be as great as expected.”

For hydrogen fuel cell trucks, the carbon footprint from production and distribution of hydrogen also plays a significant role in the lifecycle of the solution.

“Once again, the reduction is not as great as you might think,” she said. READ MORE

Excerpt from Cummins: Heavy-Duty Hydrogen, Natural Gas And Advanced Diesel Engines To Align With Tier 5

Cummins Inc. (NYSE: CMI) showcased its new fuel-agnostic 15-liter engine platform with hydrogen, natural gas and advanced diesel engines offering low-to-zero carbon fuel capability. The next generation engine is designed to accelerate the decarbonization of heavy-duty off-highway applications.

“Cummins’ all-new platform takes internal combustion to a new level, capable of meeting future ultra-low emission standards, such as EPA Tier 5 and EU Stage 6, together with a low-to-zero carbon fuel capability to help put construction and quarrying sites on a lower cost path to decarbonization,” said Antonio Leitao, VP Global Off-highway Engine Business.

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The fuel-agnostic architecture of the 15-litre platform utilizes a common base engine with cylinder heads and fuel systems specifically tailored for it to use carbon-free hydrogen or biogas with up to a 90 percent carbon reduction. Cummins’ 15-liter hydrogen has ratings up to 530 hp (395 kW) and natural gas up to 510 hp (380 kW). The advanced diesel version can use either sustainable HVO fuel or biodiesel with ratings up to 650 hp (485 kW) for the most demanding off-highway duty-cycles. READ MORE