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https://reneweconomy.com.au/electrifying-all-road-freight-between-sydney-and-melbourne-is-a-no-brainer-the-payback-is-less-than-4-years/>
"Australia has a major opportunity to improve productivity by electrifying road
freight on the major corridors.
The economic case has become outstandingly clear over the past couple of years
and there are essentially no barriers. The payback period is just 2-4 years,
depending on whether you’re replacing diesel trucks at end-of-life (2 years) or
building the fleet from scratch (4 years).
Battery powered trucks that can carry 60 tonnes already exist, and are purpose
designed with 450 km plus of range and are capable of being recharged in an
hour.
They are better than diesel trucks in every way: quieter, much less polluting,
faster, with fuel costs one-third of diesel, better equipped inside, and less
maintenance required. Drivers love them.
An International Megawatt Charging Standard also exists that enables you to
charge your 700 kWh electric truck battery at a rate of 1 MW, so just 1 hour to
charge.
Charging stations are emerging that take up to 50 or more trucks at a time. The
biggest of these – built by Huawei in China – has an input power capacity of
100 MW.
About 22 million tonnes per year of freight travels the 900 km between Sydney
and Melbourne. It works out to about 1.2 billion freight kilometres.
When you work the fuel saving maths through, this means that if fully
electrified, the industry would save about $0.9 billion per year in fuel costs,
even before the balance of trade, time savings, energy security and other
benefits.
I estimate the capital costs to fully electrify at about $4 billion, so a
payback of under 5 years. But if you only count the incremental costs — that
is, the charging stations and the extra cost of buying an electric semi over a
diesel one — then the total incremental capex is about $2.5 billion and that’s
a payback of less than 3 years.
In China about 200,000 electric semis are sold every year. It’s proven
technology available pretty much off the shelf."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
