Decrease Carbon and Nitrogen Dioxide Emissions

Sustainability

Changing trucks running on diesel to electric ones seems eco-friendly, as it will alleviate the pressure on the warehouses, which, in some states, is mandatory to reduce concomitant pollution.

Electric trucks vs diesel ones

Electric trucks “can compete with diesel ones” with a new approach of extended battery capacity, not the volume and the fast chargers.
Scientists oversaw the conception of heavy electric trucks and decided that a high-power battery would be better than many batteries.
Old electric trucks approach vs. new approach.

Nykvist, B. and Olsson, O. (2021), modeled “battery electric trucks that use high-power fast charging, enabling smaller batteries and showing that the economics of battery electric trucks per ton-kilometer improves with greater weight, driven by increasing load capacity as well as increased energy savings as a function of weight.”

It appears to be true if:

Operated for 4.5 hours and then charged for 40 minutes on a high-powered device
Somebody invents the charger (commercial fast charger doesn’t yet exist)
And there is enough power in the grid. For example, the head of Toyota indicated Japan needed more power to run all-electric cars.

By the way, the paper’s average counted speed was 40.3902 MPH (65 KMH), which is significantly lower than the average in the US (Statista).

Old electric trucks approach vs. new approach.The feasibility of heavy battery electric trucks. Credit to Nykvist, B. & Olsson, O. (2021).

Do electric trucks decrease carbon and nitrogen dioxide emissions?

Nitrogen dioxide, yes, as electric trucks do not use diesel.
However, carbon emissions are more complicated and less transparent. At the same time, whether electric vehicles are considered ecological or green is a question. In the US, electricity (about 60%) still comes from fossil fuel sources.

Greenly Resources claims that, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, manufacturing electric cars emits more carbon emissions. Also, rare earth elements (REE) such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite are required. Mining is carbon-intensive. Mining those elements in other countries, such as the Congo, for example, negatively affects biodiversity, especially the rainforest’s ecosystem.

According to Greenly Resources, recycling and reusing Li-Ion batteries is a developing area, so we don’t recycle or reuse them effectively (only 10%).

Theoretically, electric trucks may compete with diesel ones, but not in the near future. Also, they may not be as green as many think.

Is there anything else that can be done to decrease carbon and nitrogen dioxide emissions immediately?

Yes. Our load-building optimization software AutoO2 cuts the number of trucks on the roads by entirely, legally, and safely loading every carrier. As a result, our customers use fewer trucks to ship the same cargo.