In our last article we covered the challenges facing the UK transport industry, specifically considering the population of Heavy Goods Drivers (considered as anyone driving a non-passenger vehicle above 3.5T). Our attention now turns towards the vehicles themselves that are every bit as essential a part of a transport operation, and we see another alarming picture.
Owing to issues with spare parts and indeed, the manufacture of new vehicles, Price Bailey Accountants are quoted in this Motor Transport article as saying “the cost of new and second-hand cabs and trailers has rocketed over the past year or so with a corresponding increase in insurance costs. For example, units costing £85,000 plus VAT with three months delivery last year are now costing £115,000 with at least eight months delivery.” But a much bigger cloud is looming large on the horizon than the like-for-like replacement of the current fleets: namely, net zero.
According to Understanding The Electric Commercial Vehicles & HGV Market in March 2024, HGVs represented 1% of the vehicles on the UK road network, but are responsible for 20% of transport emissions. This led to a UK Government commitment to a 2040 deadline, a mere sixteen years away, that 100% of new HGVs would be zero emission by this time. Currently the global figure is 1.2%. In the UK, as of May 2022, electric vehicle use was at an all time high according to an article by SMMT – and accounted for 1/100 vans (1%) and 1/180 (0.6%) HGVs, so clearly there is a long way to go to meet this target.
Greener Options
An academic article published in July 2022 and written by a team of Chemical Engineers from Imperial College London found here ( Kayling et al. ) carried out PEST and SWOT analyses for the following alternative fuels for HGVs – liquified natural gas; biomethane; electricity and hydrogen.
Their article is extremely detailed and worthy of a read, but it is clear that most of the alternative fuels have many disadvantages over the Diesel – so much so, that really as a complete layperson, it is hard to see how they could ever support an industry in a way that is operationally viable.
The limitations can be loosely summarised as:
- Insufficient alternative charging/refill stations and infrastructure to support the limited range of non-diesel vehicles (more on this later)
- The recharging/refilling takes longer to do (hours) than diesel (minutes) even if the refill stations can be found
- LNG is still incumbent on fossil fuel and as such is not compatible with net-zero anyway, but it would be a useful intermediate step
- Alternative battery/fuel cells require mining and minerals which in themselves could simply be causing environmental issues further down the line
- The manufacture of the new technologies are not yet capable of economies of scale thus…
- …New technology is far more expensive than the existing vehicles – which are already far more expensive than they used to be – and is still largely unproven
- Biomethane is in itself becoming scarcer as landfill sites are closed; but repurposing agricultural supplies (e.g. crops, grass etc) could impact the security of food provision
Ecology vs Economy and Efficiency
This article by Gray et al. (2022) outlines the calculations carried out around the environmental and payload implications of alternative fuel vehicles. Biogas (compressed methane) decreases the payload of a base line diesel vehicle by 2.5%; a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain reduces it by 4.2% and a hydrogen Internal combustion engine (HICE) powertrain has an impact of minus 4.7% as at current stages of technology. But another question is, what “shape” is the powertrain of new technologies? Will we have to see a fundamental change in the design of the HGV tractor unit to enable the weight of the novel powertrains to be evenly shared across the axles of the vehicle? Will we see longer wheel bases, with more axles, simply to safely and legally accommodate the dimensions and weight of the different drive trains? All the investigation on payload referenced earlier in this paragraph was relating to weight – but what if the volume capacity of the vehicle is also affected? Clearly though, regardless of whether the impact affects weight or volume, if the loads do not decrease, then we will need more vehicles simply to carry the same loads. How will THAT impact on a sector already suffering a shortage of skilled labour to drive the vehicles around?
Stepping back from the conformation and payload of the vehicles, after all with advances in technology the size- and weight-to-power ratio of the new technology’s drivetrains is expected to reach parity with diesel in 2040 according to Gray et al.; but the range of electric vehicles remains impacted significantly even for forecast levels for that same year of 2040.
EV vs Diesel showed that the average range of a diesel HGV is 1200 km (~746 miles) , compared to 220km (~137 miles) for an EHGV. What is not clear in this calculation is whether the vehicles are laden or unladen, but given the range of the EHGV is less than a 1/5th of the diesel, the impact on long haul trucking would surely border on catastrophic unless a daisy chain of HGV charging stations was created, up and down the country. Can you imagine how big they would have to be, to carry the capacity of the millions of trucks hauling all points of the compass if the vehicles had to stop five times more often than they do currently? How would that affect driver scheduling? Drivers hours would at least become much less of an issue as the enforced stops would rather make a mockery of the legislated rest break requirements but that is scant reward.
And, even if the land could be found on which to build these new HGV charging stations (or the investment made to repurpose existing fuel stations) – in and of itself, this is going to increase a carbon footprint because ensuring the extra hubs have lighting and heating, not to mention building materials and construction requirements, is not going to do anything to reduce overheads or carbon emissions; and a further environmental impact of electric goods vehicles is the draw on the national grid – the grid local to the EHGV refuel depots must surely have to increase capacity to allow for this vastly inflated demand?
There are places which regularly show hold ups of densely packed HGVs – the M25 and Dover port of entry/exit spring to mind – so perhaps the UK government can think outside the box and install charging stations here, and at least make use of the delays in these locations….
But, leaving irony aside; how often do drivers just pull up in a layby to take their rest breaks – will we have to see a row of charging stations installed at all the laybys up and down the national roads? And who will pay for this roadside investment? Local councils?
The state of the UK roads (potholes and the like) and other issues not relevant here have shown that local councils are themselves struggling with their budgets – can they afford to invest millions (collectively across the country at least) on what is essentially a leap of faith in a technology that is currently very much unproven and indeed, showing signs of obsolescence before it has even begun if the recent hydrogen trials are any indication?
Is Hydrogen the answer to all our problems?
Hydrogen as an alternative fuel is, unlike electric HGVs, very promising. There are two methods: hydrogen fuel cells (abbreviated here to HFCells) , and internal combustion engines modified to run on hydrogen (HICE). According to this article by Cummins 2022 they are not really an either/or situation as they have opposing strengths. HICE, like all internal combustion engines, use the same technology whether laden or empty and therefore become more efficient fully laden. HFCells work best unladen. Hence, a dual fuel hydrogen truck (HICE & HFCell) would seem to be a perfect concept, and the R&D wing of Mercedes-Benz showcased this in their triumphant trial of the GenH2 where it covered a massive 1,047 kilometres on one single hydrogen fill. ( Hydrogen Record Run ) The trial was conducted fully laden (40T) and in real world conditions on real roads so seems robust and therefore extremely promising; the fuel was contained in 2 x 40kg tanks and used in the form of cryogenic liquid hydrogen at minus 253 degrees Celsius.
However – where is the hydrogen going to come from? According to this article by the UK Government Energy Department, currently 95% is created from a high temperature process which reacts steam with a hydrocarbon – an energy dense process which is not carbon neutral. Alternative methods are electrolysis – which can be carbon zero if the electricity used is produced from renewable sources; solar (think photochemical reactions); and biological such as microalgae and bacteria, so there are carbon neutral processes to create hydrogen.
Returning to the matter of distance; one way to increase the range of a vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine is to increase the fuel tank capacity, but it is worth remembering that the UK regulations on the transportation of hazardous materials will come into play. Liquid hydrogen or natural gas, refrigerated and compressed in cylinders, will be limited to the maximum permissible volumes without a licence which at the time of writing was 333kg OR Litres for medium risk (group 2) and 1000 KG or Litres for low risk products (group 3) in the UK ( HSE Hazchem limitations ) . A 1000 Litre fuel tank is going to have to be “long and shallow” if it isn’t to take up valuable space on the unit; and these will be prone to cracking/damage if slung across a wheelbase. All that said, the above Mercedes-Benz GenH2 was effortlessly under this Hazchem limit so it could all be moot. Electric vehicles though – they are basically looking at bigger batteries to increase the range which further impacts payload. However, HICE are not emission free – they are carbon free, yes provided the hydrogen itself was produced using carbon free processes, but they do emit NOx gases which in itself is a source of pollution and has recognised health risks.
UK NOx emissions were already failing at a number of roadside locations in February 2024; what will need to be done to manage the emissions if Hydrogen powered haulage is adopted, and what are the implications for mitigating that technology? Will we simply exchange one set of environmental and health problems for another?
It must be taken into consideration though that despite this issue of emissions, yet another advantage for HICE technology is that refuelling HICE is – along with LNG – the most akin to current diesel refuelling, so it could be comparatively straightforward to repurpose the diesel refuelling stations for hydrogen use vs electric. The obvious advantage being that the current infrastructure could be steadily adapted to carry hydrogen instead of diesel without the need to have massive lorry charging stations popping up the length and breadth of the country.
To summarise then: of the viable alternative fuels currently being considered, LNG is not a supporter of carbon zero, and biogases are themselves contributors to the greenhouse gas effect so it would seem pointless to adopt these. The flaws with EHGV are painfully obvious, and whilst it is by no means perfect, Hydrogen technology seems to offer the most potential for limited impact on range, payload, and adaptation when compared to diesel. But without a doubt, the adoption of any new technology is a problem that is going to need significant investment support from governments around Europe and the UK, and a unified international strategy to innovate and share the results. There is little point in our island investing in aforementioned daisy-chained EHGV charging stations if Europe goes to Hydrogen, and vice versa; it is one situation where we absolutely cannot afford to risk standing in isolation.
A clear, unified strategy towards a chosen alternative fuel is vital
As Low Emission Zones and Clean Air Zones are rolled out across the UK, the writing is on the wall for the diesel HGV and sadly the beleaguered haulage companies are going to have to find the money to invest in replacing their soon to be obsolete vehicle assets. But turning our backs on diesel is so much easier written than done here in the UK in particular: with interest rates rising; the labour pool decreasing; vehicle investment requirements escalating, and profits depleting, how many companies are even going to have the collateral against which to secure the necessary bank loans for such huge investments that new green assets will entail?
Yet, until the governments of Britain and Europe take ownership of the need to develop and invest in infrastructure to refuel newer, greener technologies, it will largely be a waste of money to buy the assets, as none of the technologies can currently support long-haul routes without the infrastructure to refuel. But what government will dare to invest heavily in technology when it remains as yet unproven or could be very quickly rendered obsolete, at a time when the existing concerns of health, education, roads, and poverty are so manifest, and the geopolitical arena is so fragile with the Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine conflicts? It is a catch-22 then, but if not now, when?
Funding the changes
Perhaps the rather archly named “Road map for motoring taxation” by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (2019) holds the key to the investment – by considering a tax levy per mile, corrected for emissions etc. in favour of greener vehicles, the government could gain enough money to see this infrastructure investment subsidised; but again, this will hit the road haulage industry hard, and whilst one could argue “rightly so”, let us not forget that the road haulage industry is literally driven by consumer demand – some for luxury items, yes, but a large proportion will be on goods and food necessary for life – and the Hauliers are not doing it for fun and they are certainly – increasingly! – not doing it at a profit. Therefore the hauliers will have to pass on some of these increased costs of tax per mile which will inadvertently hit the consumers – even the ones who themselves choose not to drive. But however unsavoury a prospect tax per mile is to the haulier, as long as the money is invested back into the infrastructure – roads and fuel – that maintains the industry, it will have to do: because the money is going to have to come from somewhere. Although, arguably, the hauliers will end up paying twice – for the investment up front in greener assets, and the tax per mile levy.
But however it comes to pass, the haulage and driver associations simply must lobby the National governments in earnest, challenging them to pick a fuel, and then to implement actual strategies to create the charging/refuelling infrastructure that will enable alternative technologies to be adopted, in order to mitigate the direction the local governments are forcing, by increasingly limiting access of diesel HGVs with the clean air zone legislation.
However you cut it, the future seems rather bleak, but there is something we can do: We can focus on making our networks optimised and our transport operations as lean as they can be, right now, so when the inevitable comes and we have to look for the capital to replace our faithful diesel workhorses, at least we know that our like-for-like replacements will be at a bare minimum, and our taxes per mile will be as low as they can be.
And for now, it seems like this will have to do.
About the Author
Kate is ASCALi’s Lead Data Analyst and Researcher. She has worked in the supply chain industry for over 15 years helping a range of businesses find innovative ways to optimise their supply chain operations. Kate brings a real passion for the detail, helping create the connections demonstrable in data and process to assist the development root causes to client challenges.
About ASCALi
ASCALi is a dedicated team of experienced, innovative and pragmatic supply chain professionals. Our team provides supply chain consultancy services across a range of businesses and sectors from the smallest SMEs and start-up businesses through to major global brands. Our team have been delivering exceptional consultancy designs, implementations and optimisations since 2002. Please reach out to ASCALi today to talk to us about how we can help you accelerate your supply chain.
