Original equipment manufacturers have identified an emerging market for BE MHDVs, advertising them to fleet operators as an opportunity to reduce operating and maintenance costs and their ecological footprint. While environmental benefits of BEVs are broadly appreciated, they can vary substantially depending on complex interactions between vehicle behavior , the physical environment , as well as characteristics of the electrical power grid used to charge these vehicles. Due to the nuanced complexities of freight truck electrification, the MHDV market has focused BEV deployment strategies to target specific vocations that have operational characteristics that are the most conducive to electrification. Local small parcel delivery vehicles have received the most attention, due to the relatively low daily miles travelled and lower loads and less strenuous duty-cycles that do not require larger battery capacity. Signaling the attractiveness of BEV deployments in parcel delivery vocations, the United States Postal Service awarded contracts for over nine thousand BEVs and over fourteen thousand charging stations in early 2023 in support of the agency’s stated goal to make 75% of its newly acquired vehicles electric, rising to 100% in 2026 and thereafter. The United Parcel Service has a similar goal of reaching 40% alternative fuel in the company’s ground operations by 2025 and carbon neutrality by 2050. UPS currently boasts over one thousand BEVs and PHEVs on the road in support of that goal and has agreements in place to purchase thousands more. Other vocations have also begun to reap the benefits of BE MHDVs in recent months as well. In late 2022, PepsiCo received the first order of Class 8 Tesla Semi electric trucks for deployment in their beverage delivery operation.
Frito-Lay, a PepsiCo subsidiary, deployed 40 electric vans within their North American division last year. PepsiCo’s Class 8 heavy-duty trucks will operate on short and regional haul duty cycles. While the electrification of long-haul heavy-duty semitrucks has been studied closely, grow rack the significantly greater trip lengths, payloads, and subsequent greater energy demands and fuel consumption, necessitate larger and more powerful batteries for HDV electric power trains than are provided by current technology in most cases. BEV models capable of long-haul operations are on the horizon, but existing BE MHDVs have operational ranges of less than 250 miles, with a few but growing number of exceptions. Policy levers orchestrated by local, state, and national governments have also helped to accelerate much of the recent growth observed in truck freight electrification. In 2021, the California Air Resources Board finalized their Advanced Clean Trucks rule, setting a standard requirement for 50% of new medium- and light heavy-duty vehicle and 30% of new heavy-duty tractor sales to be zero-emitting by 2030 as shown in Table 1. New York state adopted a similar rule, establishing a ratcheting standard for percentage of new electric MHDV sales as a share of total MHDV sales, culminating in 100% of new MHDVs registered in the state being zero-emitting by 2045. In addition, a coalition of 17 US states plus Washington D.C. and the province of Quebec, Canada signed a memorandum of understanding in 2022 committing to reaching 30% of new MHDV sales being zero-emitting by 2030, rising to 100% by 2050. This coalition estimates the potential net economic savings of the full electrification of the national MHDV fleet to be as much as $140 billion cumulatively, across the vehicles’ lifetimes.
At the Federal level, the United States Environmental Protection Agency announced a proposed rule that applies more ambitious pollution standards to heavy-duty vocational vehicles, and CARB projects that the new rule will avoid 1.8 billion metric tons of GHG emissions between 2027 and 2055, and provide significant particulate matter and other criteria pollutant emission reductions. According to the U.S. EPA, the industry can meet the new standards by achieving 50% zero-emissions vehicles for vocational vehicles, 34% for day use tractors, and 25% for sleeper cab tractors in MY2032, with a mix of BE and fuel cell technologies. The U.S. EPA also projects significant savings for electric MHDV purchasers due to reduced operating costs, despite increased upfront costs and after accounting for available battery tax credits. The regulatory focus on, and the consideration afforded to, electric trucks in present and future plans of players in the road freight industry signal an emerging alignment on the public and business benefits of electric MHDVs. There is widespread agreement in the freight industry that electrification can be a sound business choice, with operating mode savings surpassing higher MSRPs relatively early in the ZEV’s useful lifetime. In support of their rule making, the U.S. EPA found that most zero-emitting MHDV purchasers would offset their increased upfront costs, including the cost of electric vehicle supplementary equipment like charging infrastructure, with operational savings within three years of ownership. Elsewhere, Gao et al simulated energy consumption of a Class 7 local food delivery truck and found a battery electric or Power-GenSet PHEV can reduce the overall cost for energy by 29 to 44 percent, with the noted variability attributable to on-route charging availability, payload characteristics, and other factors. However, these authors did not consider the increased cost of electric power train technology. Another study assumed a MSRP differential of around $100,000 between a conventional Class 8 diesel and battery-electric semi-truck and found a baseline payback period for the BEV of 3.24 years ±1.46 years.
The reality remains, however, that the magnitude of savings and payback periods are heavily dependent upon each vehicle’s routes, on-road operating characteristics, and the design of the freight distribution system for each electrification application. A primary analytical goal of fleet electrification assessment is to identify what makes one use-case more attractive for BE technology deployment than another. This requires knowledge of the operational configurations of the fleet and availability of an analytical tool that can assess electrification benefits. A simple, standardized technoeconomic analytical framework can leverage preexisting economic and lifecycle models, while also reducing the modeling knowledge required to evaluate the electrification merits for specific conditions. The TCOST model is designed to help identify feasible use cases that can lead to the most efficient roll out of electrification within specific sectors/businesses in the MHDV fleet. The TCOST model implements an economic analysis framework that can be applied to any freight sectors wherein fleet composition, freight loads, and on-road activity can be quantified, and then calculates economic benefits and disbenefits of BEV deployment, as well as energy use and emission reduction benefits by applying existing energy use and air quality models within the economic analysis framework. As part of this research, an example short-range to-mid-range MHDV freight use-case is assessed using TCOST for the state of Georgia. The use-case example operating profiles presented in this report indicate how specific drayage freight flows can bring into focus the characteristics that help or hinder electrification potential. The Total Cost of Ownership Spreadsheet Tool is provided as a Microsoft Excel®-based model , distilling the framework utilized in the use case evaluation down to a simple user interface with a series of inputs to customize calculations for user-defined use-cases. TCOST integrates primary data, functions, and assumptions of MOVES-Matrix for “Pump-to-Wheels” energy consumption and emissions rates, and the DOE GREET model energy consumption while also incorporating from the literature, additional information relevant to the simulations. TCOST expedites the analytical process and vastly reduces required modeling knowledge for MHDV electrification analyses, vertical racks removing knowledge barriers and facilitating more efficient and effective decision-making for freight brokers and MHDV fleet managers. Finally, TCOST is applied to the previously defined use-case to demonstrate its utility for fleet managers and planners as a simplified method for back-of-envelope calculations using a handful of user inputs to assess benefits and inform decision-making. The TCOST application to the use-case serves as an instructional model for future use of the tool.Understanding the form, trends, and operational conditions of Georgia’s freight system is important because it provides a context against which individual vocations can be evaluated. Handling over 850 million tons of freight flows annually, the state of Georgia boasts one of the most robust freight networks in the United States. The state is home to the nation’s most significant airport for air cargo with Hartfield-Jackson International , the fastest growing container port with the Port of Savannah , and the southeast hub of operations for two Class I railroads in the eastern U.S. with Norfolk Southern and CSX.
Georgia’s Interstate system is in the top ten among states for interstate miles , and Georgia has an extensive network of state highways and local roads providing enhanced connectivity. The state’s logistic industry is a critical component of the state economy; in 2018 logistics was responsible for about 7% of Georgia’s GDP and nearly 500 thousand jobs, including 239 thousand direct jobs. In Georgia, 75% of total 2018 freight flows by weight are carried by truck, with almost the entire remaining 25% of total tonnage carried by rail. An even larger share of freight value was carried by truck. Truck freight is uniquely positioned to provide door-to-door service between almost any origin and destination, enabling highly flexible delivery scheduling at low cost and on short notice. For this reason, truck mode share and total volume in Georgia are forecasted to grow substantially, in line with the growth of same-day or next-day deliveries associated with e-commerce. Truck freight flows in Georgia are expected to grow anywhere from 1.5% per year to 2.2% per year and Economy.com estimates through mid-century [19].Georgia’s truck freight system activity is geospatially centered around the Metro Atlanta region as well as the Port of Savannah. Atlanta is the second largest population center in the southeast U.S. and is a major manufacturing and commercial hub. The Port of Savannah is the second busiest container port in terms of total throughput on the East Coast. Figure 1 shows the convergence of multiple significant freight corridors in Georgia’s Atlanta region for both interstate and intrastate commodity flows. Figure 2 is from the Atlanta Regional Commission’s latest regional freight mobility plan published in 2016 and depicts truck volumes on the Interstate system and state highways in the Atlanta region. The dense truck traffic on the I-285 perimeter is primarily due to interactions between through truck movements generated outside of the metro area with destinations also outside of the region , coupled with local delivery trucks transporting goods between warehouses and distribution centers and to locations within the region. The top twelve truck count locations in Georgia are in the Atlanta metropolitan region. The restriction of activities on I-75 and I-85 inside the I-285 perimeter lead to comparatively low truck counts on those thoroughfares. The Atlanta-Savannah corridor is especially significant to the economic well being of Georgia as it connects the state’s regional economic and population center with the Southeast’s primary link to the international market at the Port of Savannah. Over 100 thousand loaded trucks complete trips between Atlanta and Savannah every year , and three intermodal trains also depart every day. These numbers have only grown since the Georgia Ports Authority completed a deepening project in Savannah harbor in 2022, which is estimated to allow a typical container ship to load an additional one thousand containers and increase import and export volumes at the Port of Savannah.The Georgia Ports Authority owns and operates inland ports of their own. Appalachian Regional Port in northwest Georgia is operated in public-private partnership with CSX. ARP has direct CSX railway connection to the Port of Savannah and easy access to the I-75 corridor, providing inland intermodal transfers about 100 miles from both Atlanta and Knoxville, TN and 45 miles from Chattanooga, TN. GPA bench marked the capacity of ARP at 50 thousand containers per year when it opened in 2018 and there are plans to double its capacity by 2028. GPA estimates each round-trip container moved by rail to and from ARP to offset 710 truck miles on Georgia’s highways and the port diverts up to 40 thousand trucks from Atlanta area roadways each year. Bainbridge Terminal in southwest Georgia primarily handles intermodal transfers for containers traveling by barge on the Apalachicola Chattahoochee-Flint waterway system in that part of the state. Construction plans for another inland port facility in Hall County, northeast of the Atlanta region, gained federal environmental approval in May 2023. GPA estimates construction to be completed in 2026.