Insider's Guide to Energy EV

30. Future of Heavy-Duty EVs and Hydrogen Trucks: Insights from Daimler Truck Experts

• Chris Sass, Niall Riddell, James Venables, Ibrahim Kraria • Season 1 • Episode 30

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In this episode of the Insider's Guide to Energy EV series, we delve deep into the electrification and hydrogen revolution within the heavy-duty vehicle sector. Hosted by Chris Sass and Niall Riddell, this episode features insightful discussions with James Venables, Head of Future Sustainability for Daimler Truck UK, and Ibrahim Kraria, an expert in sustainability strategies. The conversation kicks off with an exploration of the urgency of sustainability in transportation, tackling the pivotal question of whether the future lies in electric or hydrogen vehicles. With Daimler Truck's pioneering efforts in both areas, listeners are treated to a comprehensive overview of the current state and future prospects of heavy-duty EVs and hydrogen trucks. 

The episode sheds light on Daimler Truck's innovative journey, starting with the introduction of their first electric truck in 2017 to the recent debut of the Actros 600 in the UK. Venables and Kraria discuss the technical advancements in battery technology and the efficiency gains achieved through their unique e-axle design. They emphasize the importance of infrastructure development, sharing insights into the challenges and solutions related to charging and refueling heavy-duty vehicles. The discussion also touches on Daimler's dual strategy of leveraging both battery electric and hydrogen fuel technologies to meet diverse market needs and regional energy availability. 

Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of the practical considerations and future developments in the heavy-duty EV and hydrogen truck landscape. The episode highlights the collaborative efforts required to build the necessary infrastructure, the role of regulatory support, and the potential of upcoming technologies like MW charging and vehicle-to-grid capabilities. Whether you're a fleet manager, a sustainability enthusiast, or simply curious about the future of transportation, this episode provides valuable perspectives and expert insights into the evolving world of sustainable heavy-duty vehicles.

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Transcript 

 

00:00:00 Ibrahim Kraria 

There's a lot of debates. We all agree that sustainability is the way forward, but there's a lot of debate on how is it electric? Is it hydrogen? The question also that we need to keep in mind, there's a matter of urgency towards sustainability. So is there electric now and hydrogen later? Is it both and when? 

00:00:19 Speaker 

Broadcasting from Washington, DC, This is Insider's Guide To Energy. 

00:00:33 Chris Sass 

This episode of Insider's Guide to Energy EV miniseries is Powered by Paua. 

00:00:39 Chris Sass 

Paua helps your business transition to electric vehicles by simplifying charging, managing payments, and optimizing your charging data. Welcome to another edition of the Insider's Guide to Energy EV series, Niall, what's the plan for today's show? 

00:00:52 Niall Riddell 

We are going big today, Chris, and by big I mean bigger batteries, bigger vehicles and potentially bigger charging infrastructure. So we're here 2:00 today with two guests from Daimler truck, James Venables and Ibrahim Kraria, and we're gonna be talking about the electrification of heavier vehicles. 

00:01:12 Chris Sass 

I'm excited we we've done a lot on vehicles, we've done on vans. I don't think we've gotten anything this big yet, so let's go big or go home. 

00:01:19 Niall Riddell 

Excellent. So, James, Ibrahim, do you want to introduce yourselves and tell us a bit about the the company and the brands that you represent? 

00:01:26 James Venables 

Yeah, uh, sure. Niall would love to. So I'm James Venables. I'm head of future sustainability for Daimler Truck UK. And as you've pointed out, Niall, we work for the larger organisation Daimler Truck and bus. Our business produces about half a million trucks and buses. For sale around the world every year, making us the world's largest commercial. 

00:01:51 James Venables 

Vehicle manufacturer, when it comes to electrification, our journey started back in 2017 with the world's first series produced seven-and-a-half-ton electric truck. The Fuso E canter. And since then we've brought other trucks to the market in the major markets. 

00:02:11 James Venables 

Around the world, other electric trucks and the most recent one is. 

00:02:15 James Venables 

The big one? It's the electros 600 that we recently debuted in the UK and had on the EV rally with us three major brands we're represented by around the world are Fuso, Mercedes-Benz and Freightliner. 

00:02:37 Niall Riddell 

Very cool. Now for those of us who are less familiar with trucks, can you help me a little bit with the terminology and the kind of vehicles we're talking about, cause what is a seven and a half ton truck and why is the actress 600 such a big deal where what, what's that spectrum look like? 

00:02:54 James Venables 

OK, so the our range actually goes from four and a quarter tonnes with the the canter. So that's four and a half, four and a quarter tonnes gross vehicle weight as we call it. So that's the complete weight of the vehicle, the body and the load it's carrying the payload. 

00:03:10 James Venables 

And then you know, we go through to the seven and a half ton E canter, then we move into 19 and 27 ton rigid trucks are bodied trucks and then we move up to articulated trucks and then we've got the atros 600. 

00:03:30 James Venables 

At at 42 tons maximum. So again, that's the combination weight everything including the the payload. So you know a big truck. 

00:03:42 Chris Sass 

When you're talking gross vehicle weight and we're talking EV's. 

00:03:46 Chris Sass 

How significant? One of the complaints I was here for folks that aren't big, passionate about EV's is that they're you're just driving batteries around and we're starting talking trucks. 

00:03:55 Chris Sass 

How hard was it to make the move from a gas engine to a battery engine and how much difference does the truck capacity change by adding batteries? 

00:04:04 James Venables 

Yes, I mean that's a really good question. And the reason is is because if you rewound to sort of 10 years ago. 

00:04:12 James Venables 

That we had internal presentations that that showed if we wanted to have an articulated truck, then you'd need something like 15 tonnes of batteries in order to to go a reasonable distance for an operator. 

00:04:30 James Venables 

And now we're in a position where, you know, we've just launched a truck. The actual 600 that will do over 300 miles on a single charge when loaded at at 40 tonnes. 

00:04:44 James Venables 

And and still has a payload of around about 22 tonnes, so you know a reasonable payload for the operator. Is it as good as a diesel at this stage? No. But the the regulatory framework is being adopted in, in various countries to try and sort of. 

00:05:04 James Venables 

Balance the disparity or the delta, really. Between an ice truck and a A Bev truck so that the payload advantage is is is not or. Disadvantage is not as. 

00:05:20 James Venables 

Bad as it could be. So you know to give you an example of that in the UK and in Europe, you can have an additional 2 tonnes to operate a battery electric truck over its diesel counterpart, assuming that it's technically capable of it. So the the gap is closing. 

00:05:40 James Venables 

Definitely. 

00:05:41 Ibrahim Kraria 

So to add to what James has said, Uhm, we're basically taking away the diesel components and replacing them with electrical components. And so it's not thinking of the diesel truck of the weight, it's the diesel truck adding batteries on top. It's actually taking some components out, new components in the delta is still there. 

00:06:01 Ibrahim Kraria 

While we're working towards closing that Delta and their regulatory framework helps us with that. 

00:06:07 Chris Sass 

So the question that leads to my mind, though you both alluded to that the technology is moving rather rapidly, right? So if at one point you watched a presentation saying this is gonna be really heavy, not doable. 

00:06:18 Chris Sass 

Today it says OK, we changed some components out and we get some value and there's some allowance in the law or some allowance for a little bit of extra weight, but trucks aren't like cars. Usually if a fleet owner buys a truck, they're they're having them for quite some time on the road. They're designed to go a really long time. So if I buy an EV truck today, am I stuck with the mileage range? 

00:06:38 Chris Sass 

To have today or is there a way to get advantage of improved technology as we go forward? 

00:06:45 Ibrahim Kraria 

So usually we when we talk with our customers, we're quite transparent with them and we try to maintain that long term relationship and with the to come up with the portfolio that we have, for example the actual 304 hundred, the actual 600, we've got a wide range of what could be suitable for the customer and in most cases what we've had so far. 

00:07:04 Ibrahim Kraria 

Listen here in the UK, we do have a right product and when the product is right for the customer, if technology evolves later on, it shouldn't have that much of an impact because if it works for their operations, it just works so. 

00:07:21 Ibrahim Kraria 

Technology is reaching to a certain plateau where it is sufficient for the customer to work, but of course there's always that 1020% efficiency or improvement or saving time, but that's something that we are aware of. Our product pipeline and our timeline of what's coming in the future and we we really want to find what's best for the customer and if electrification or sustainable solution. 

00:07:41 Ibrahim Kraria 

Is not right for them today with the current portfolio today, we would rather wait a little bit and give them the right product that suits their needs. 

00:07:51 James Venables 

Yeah, I think I totally agree with that Ibrahim and and maybe to add to it, I think when it comes to the trucks that we're selling and that we're suggesting to operators and when we're talking to to operators, to our customers, about these trucks range with our product portfolio isn't the limiting. 

00:08:10 James Venables 

Factor at the moment so you know we do 19 ton rigid trucks with a range of nearly 200 miles optionally up to 250 miles for customers that want some extra range. 

00:08:24 James Venables 

And then as we mentioned earlier, Electro 600 with a range of about 320 miles. So range isn't the limiting factor. I think at the moment the limiting factor is the availability of of of charging infrastructure and and that that is probably the bigger challenge at the minute. 

00:08:45 Niall Riddell 

And I love charging infrastructure, so we will come back to this, but umm, you've kind of talked us through the electrification side of things, a lot of people have talked about other technologies to support fleet decarbonization. What's the sort of basic Technology Strategy you you guys are considering when it comes to other fuel types? 

00:09:03 Ibrahim Kraria 

So we've got a dual strategy, we believe in battery electric trucks technology and we also believe in hydrogen technology and in hydrogen itself, we've got two technologies in there. We've got the fuel cells. 

00:09:16 Ibrahim Kraria 

Pollution. And we've also got the hydrogen combustion solution, which is basically the similar to diesel by just pumping in hydrogen instead of actually diesel. So we as a darmour truck group, we believe in both energy forms if you to put it that way and and it and because we serve customers all over the world. 

00:09:36 Ibrahim Kraria 

It's it's we think we've got good coverage with these both technologies because it depends on the situation, what are the circumstances, what are the available energy on that place when it comes to cost as well. And so we think that we've placed our strategy or bet on these two technologies. 

00:09:53 Niall Riddell 

So customers now have a choice in terms of fuel. 

00:09:55 Niall Riddell 

Type. 

00:09:57 Niall Riddell 

And from what you've started to describe quite a wide range of different models. Do you have electrification in each of those vehicle types from the the four and a quarter tons right up to the the Ector 600 or are there some gaps in that that sort of uh customer base or? 

00:10:13 Niall Riddell 

Model type that you haven't filled. 

00:10:16 James Venables 

Yeah. I think Niall, to answer that at the moment, we're kind of targeting the the major sectors in terms of you know, normal distribution so and and and by that I'm I'm saying we're targeting sort of 7 1/2 tonnes 19 and 27 tons. 

00:10:35 James Venables 

So return to depot. 

00:10:38 James Venables 

Urban and regional distribution for for those weight categories and then with the actor 600. Then we move into regional and long haul transport heavy distribution. In terms of the gaps at the minute construction. 

00:10:58 James Venables 

Vehicles are something that will come in the future. You know the packaging when it comes to construction vehicles, particularly with like 4 axle construction vehicles for things like concrete mixers is a is a lot more. 

00:11:12 James Venables 

Challenging and that's a place where maybe we also see an opportunity for hydrogen internal combustion as well. And and so there are, you know at this stage there are gaps in the portfolio, but by the end of the decade, they'll all be plucked. 

00:11:32 Ibrahim Kraria 

And I think the speed to enrich the portfolio can be a bit quicker because that first tick truck that we. 

00:11:37 Ibrahim Kraria 

Get which is the long haul. 

00:11:39 Ibrahim Kraria 

Or the other regional distribution, then a lot of the technology is transferable to the other portfolios. But we thought that the best market entry point is with the bigger volume and hence distribution was the starting point. 

00:11:51 Chris Sass 

When you talk about volume and. 

00:11:54 Chris Sass 

Getting trucks out. How? How often are you gated by the utility and the availability of charging for these fleets? And is that hurting your pipeline because you may be able to develop the technology quickly, but is there capacity to charge these and have you seen that slowing down customers being able to deploy the trucks that they buy from you or or holding back by decisions? 

00:12:15 Ibrahim Kraria 

So we've got a very electrification formula, we call it. It's made of few components, the right product, infrastructure and cost. And if one of those is 0, the electrification or sustainability transformation doesn't work. 

00:12:31 Ibrahim Kraria 

We've come up with the product and now we're introducing a really good product in the market and this is where my role focuses on the law is the. 

00:12:39 Ibrahim Kraria 

For peace, of course, infrastructure isn't where it is right now, and this is where we are coming up with solutions both at customer level and also at public level to name an example, we have a joint venture with trading Group and Volvo Group called Migrants and this joint venture is specifically dedicated to set up. 

00:12:59 Ibrahim Kraria 

Dedicated public charging points for trucks across Europe. That's an example. And I think we have one in the US called green fleet. 

00:13:07 Ibrahim Kraria 

And so we are putting in initiatives from us to enrich and solve the infrastructure problem out there. But primarily we are also having our E consulting offering where we support customers electrify their depots, which we believe solves more of their electrification needs to electrify their trucks. 

00:13:26 Chris Sass 

One element I didn't hear on your three points, so that makes a lot of sense because you you you need all the elements in order to work is driver train. 

00:13:35 Chris Sass 

Is, is, is. Is this something that someone can just hop into a different vehicle if I've been driving a truck for 20 years, am I gonna be able to hop into one of your trucks and go or do I need different training? For example for downshifting or or? Or you know handling hills or things like that? Is electric vehicle significantly different at this weight range than a traditional vehicle? 

00:13:52 James Venables 

The interface the driver has with the vehicle is very similar. You know, as it stands today on a on a dial. 

00:13:57 James Venables 

Truck you have an engine brake and the engine brake is operated in our trucks by a lever on the right hand side of the steering wheel, and when it comes to battery electric trucks, we have the same setup. So we have the same lever, but now it's doing the regenerative braking that can either be done through the brake brake pedal so. 

00:14:18 James Venables 

We do regeneration through the brake pedal or the driver can operate this lever on the right hand side and it's exactly the same sort of control setup that he's familiar with from an ice truck. So from that perspective it's very easy for a driver to get from 1 truck. 

00:14:37 James Venables 

Into IE and ice truck into a Bev truck and we try and make that transition as easy as possible. 

00:14:48 Ibrahim Kraria 

And and it's the same thing with diesel trucks as well, because even with diesel trucks, we tend to offer customers driver training. How to drive diesel trucks properly for fuel efficiency. And of course, we would have the same thing with electric trucks. That's number one and #2 with this whole transformation. The fact that you need to charge the truck, charge it overnight. 

00:15:08 Ibrahim Kraria 

All that part of training, also the fleet operator or the fleet manager comes into the picture as well. 

00:15:15 Niall Riddell 

So you've you've opened up one of my favorite topics around charging and we've kind of got the state of charging today and where we anticipate it will get to in the future. If we start with where we are today. James, you have first hand experience of driving these vehicles on today's public infrastructure. 

00:15:34 Niall Riddell 

Can you tell us a bit more about? 

00:15:36 Niall Riddell 

That and what it's been like. 

00:15:38 James Venables 

Yeah, I think it's really interesting Niall, actually, to see the development of charging infrastructure on the UK Strategic Rd. network over the past couple of years. So you know, just in the last week or so, we've taken part in the GB EV rally. 

00:15:57 James Venables 

Electric vehicle rally and we took the ELECTROS 600, this 40 ton Arctic and and we managed to to do 1500 miles over 5 days and we we found. 

00:16:10 James Venables 

And places where we could charge that truck. You know, there's now a relative abundance in the UK of like 300 kilowatt plus charges. 

00:16:21 James Venables 

If we'd done that two years ago, it would have been almost impossible because you know, what were the what was the charging infrastructure like? It was mainly sort of 50 kilowatt chargers. You might find the odd 1 / 100 a 150. Well, we've got 600 kilowatt hours of battery capacity on this trip. 

00:16:39 James Venables 

So you know, we need 300 kilowatt plus chargers in order to charge that within a reasonable time frame and a reasonable time frame is a driver charging in his 45 minute rest break that he has to have by law and and and we found it's possible. 

00:17:00 James Venables 

To to do it, we had to uncouple the trailer at times. Most of the time, before we did the charging and we got some really surprised looks from car drivers. When we when we slotted a truck into one of the base to charge and it generated a lot of conversation, positive conversation. 

00:17:18 James Venables 

So I think you know the key message is we could do it. 

00:17:22 James Venables 

However, if you're a truck operator, then it's not practical to uncouple the trailer and you need predictability. Predictability is really important and therefore it's important from our perspective that truck operators have got access to secure truck charging. That's reservable. 

00:17:44 James Venables 

And it's at the right power and the right power from our perspective is, you know 400 kilowatt CCS. 

00:17:52 James Venables 

Merging and in the future MW charging because that then becomes a game changer. Then we can start talking about charging a truck 20 to 80% in about half an hour and and that is then super feasible in a driver's 45 minute. 

00:18:13 James Venables 

Breast. 

00:18:13 James Venables 

Right. And and as Ibrahim said earlier, that's something that we are working on as truck manufacturers to kind of see the market to some extent with that type of facility through the joint venture company that we set up Milans plan there is 1700 high-powered. 

00:18:33 James Venables 

Large points in the UK and Europe over the next four or five years. So yeah, things are changing and it's getting a lot better. I think car drivers now have got a fantastic abundance of of charging and it's it's moving really rapidly. 

00:18:51 James Venables 

UM, it's just going to be interesting to see the same change happen for truck over the next two or three years. 

00:18:59 Niall Riddell 

And what was quite interesting for me with the electric vehicle rally where you had that truck out there was clearly there was a lot of interest, but we were driving a second hand Renault Zoe, which is a pretty small family Esque car. You probably wouldn't want to have small children jumping out of that car alongside. 

00:19:19 Niall Riddell 

The kind of vehicles that we're we were trying to charge at those locations. So you can see there's a definite need for a dedicated truck infrastructure opportunity. 

00:19:29 Niall Riddell 

We also know that we've had a lot of experience rolling out electric car charging. How do you see the truck charging ecosystem evolving? 

00:19:39 Ibrahim Kraria 

I think it's evolving with the needs and the challenges that the customers are facing. 

00:19:45 Ibrahim Kraria 

What I mean by that is, for example the the grid capacity challenges that some of the customers are. 

00:19:52 Ibrahim Kraria 

Today, if you I always look to cars and buses as a step ahead in terms of electrification. But then truck is coming in with that part bigger in terms of battery and power and so on. And when you look at car charging at home, you see lot more people having charging at home. 

00:20:12 Ibrahim Kraria 

But they tend to supplement that for cost issues or for just not necessarily great capacities. It's you. They may have a small battery on site and they have some, some solar on site just to make it cheaper or more green. The energy on site I think. 

00:20:28 Ibrahim Kraria 

That would happen in the truck world, but for similar reasons the cost, but also for grid capacity issues as well. To close that gap until the grid is is up, has upgraded so it will certainly develop with with regards to the challenges that it that it brings to the truck. 

00:20:48 Ibrahim Kraria 

Creation, but it will develop differently than what happened in Kos. 

00:20:54 Niall Riddell 

And particularly in the truck world, one thing that's been talked about is MW charging. What exactly is MW charging and is it something you guys are focusing on? 

00:21:06 Ibrahim Kraria 

I think definitely MW charging is key, especially for a long haul product. The actual 600 which comes with the MW charging and the reason for that is quite simple. UM, we want to give customers the opportunity to charge as quick as possible in the shortest time possible as well. So if you think about it in the UK. 

00:21:26 Ibrahim Kraria 

A truck driver can drive up to a certain speed. 

00:21:29 Ibrahim Kraria 

Up to a certain amount of time, and if they were to maximise the time they can draw their allowed to drive and the speed they allowed to drive on that and then they have to take. 

00:21:38 Ibrahim Kraria 

Their mandatory break for. 

00:21:40 Ibrahim Kraria 

30 to 45 minutes. Our vision is that they could do a top up MW charge there to do the whole 500 kilometers again, even though they wouldn't necessarily. 

00:21:49 Ibrahim Kraria 

Finished the 1st 500 kilometres in the first shift. If we can call it like that. So definitely MW charging does bring added value to our customers. It's specifically for public charging. 

00:22:02 Ibrahim Kraria 

And for opportunity charging as well, where customers, if they offload some goods, a certain customer or another depot rather than stopping to charge their charging while they stop and they can get the maximum top up in that short offloading time. So that is where we see MW charging fitting for overnight charging. I think CSDC should be sufficient. 

00:22:24 Chris Sass 

The current infrastructure that you're describing, this is focused more on fleets. So is the UK environment, do you have independent owner operators your truck or are we still at the point where this is a fleet decision cause it's still early innings? 

00:22:38 James Venables 

It's it's a mixture. You know, we've, we've still got quite a number of owner operators in the UK. So and we've got the smaller operators but and then we've got the the really big fleets as well. So there are there are a complete mixture over over the last 10 years. 

00:22:58 James Venables 

You know, through consolidation and acquisition, fleets have tended to to get bigger, so there's less smaller fleets and and and there's there's bigger fleets. 

00:23:13 James Venables 

As well, but yeah, it is a mixed bag, Chris on that and and the needs are really different. 

00:23:17 Chris Sass 

But so I guess where I'm going with that is, has the industries that support taped up. So for example, an independent owner operator might need to get financing for an electric vehicle over a diesel truck. 

00:23:30 Chris Sass 

Is that infrastructure keeping up and is it in place? So if you want to buy one of your trucks or do I need to find finance it through? Daimler is is the industry around or any different for an EV or compared to a traditional? 

00:23:41 James Venables 

I mean the key difference is of course the the infrastructure and the need to. 

00:23:46 James Venables 

Have charging infrastructure and we recognise that as a as a truck manufacturer, as a dedicated truck manufacturer and also having an in House finance company, Daimler Financial Services and we want to offer our customers a complete solution. And so that means having an offer for the charging infrastructure as well. 

00:24:08 James Venables 

And that's something that we're we're working on at the moment. We're bringing to the market at the moment. So we will make our pet. 

00:24:16 James Venables 

Chronic charging infrastructure available through our dealer partners, our franchise partners in the UK and and we will have the ability to fund that as part of the solution, the transport solution to the customer through Daimler Financial Services. So we can provide the hardware and we can. 

00:24:36 James Venables 

Done that in there as well as long as also including some of the the groundwork. 

00:24:44 James Venables 

Etcetera. 

00:24:45 Chris Sass 

All right, So what I heard is kind of a soup to nuts solution where you you're you're building infrastructure in place so that I can go do that now the one other cost that you may incur with an EV, just thinking this as we're talking is software to run this. So obviously, fleets currently have software for fleet management. Is there an additional layer of software that you subscribe to when you have a truck to to keep everything going? 

00:25:07 Chris Sass 

An electric vehicle? Or is it just all part of what I buy when I buy the truck? 

00:25:12 Ibrahim Kraria 

So there's three levels of software. The first one that you rightly mentioned is the fleet management software telematics where we have Fleet board and so on. If you add charging to the picture, you're entering with your CMS charger management system that can enable you to plan your charging, avoid peak to peak shaving schedule when your trucks are leaving these five trucks go first. I want them to have the most power. 

00:25:32 Ibrahim Kraria 

Etcetera. Then the next level above that is going back to the example of the ecosystem. If we were to add battery storage and solar system, solar panels on site, then you would need an energy management system to manage all of. 

00:25:44 Ibrahim Kraria 

We do have our in-house solution for Freeport. Our CMS software is coming and it is. We are adding functionalities to it as we go along with the fleet and and I think definitely there's available options out there for energy management system softwares. 

00:25:59 Niall Riddell 

Could we dive deep in some of the tech characteristics you've built into this vehicle? For example, what's the battery chemistry you've chosen? And why did you choose it? 

00:26:10 James Venables 

So on that one, when we started out, we started out with really upscaled passenger car technology at the time of course and until the end of 2021, we were part of the the larger Diamond Group which included cars and vans and and. 

00:26:29 James Venables 

We felt one of the best ways to come to market was with some of that proven electronic architecture that we had with that product. So 400 Volt architecture. That meant NMC battery chemist. 

00:26:40 James Venables 

St. as well, it enabled us to get to market rapidly with with also good compatibility with the existing charges that were out in, in the market predominantly you know car technology was 400 volts initially, but since then with the products that we've launched more recently. 

00:27:01 James Venables 

We've moved away from NMC battery chemistry towards LFP battery chemistry, so with the next generation E Canter that we've recently launched under each or 6. 

00:27:13 James Venables 

100 they've got LFP battery chemistry. Why have we done that? The reason we've done that is for for two reasons. One is we feel it offers operators the the lowest cost, but also it gives them fantastic energy density and usable. 

00:27:34 James Venables 

Energy density as well. So we have like 97% usable capacity on the E atros 600 versus you know if you look at NMC battery chemistry probably somewhere between 75 and 85% usable. 

00:27:50 James Venables 

But in addition, the final, the final sort of part of the jigsaw is that we offer a truck that has the same design life as a diesel truck. So we are offering a truck with a A10 year 1.2 million kilometre design life with electros. 

00:28:10 James Venables 

600 and that's the same as a diesel truck, and that's a really powerful message that that truck is going to last a long time and and give good service. 

00:28:21 James Venables 

With a really good state of charge throughout the life cycle of that vehicle or state of health, if you like. So the state of charge is going to be still very good towards the. 

00:28:34 James Venables 

End of the life. 

00:28:37 Niall Riddell 

And that battery chemistry is now running at 800 volts, which also enables you to handle much higher charging speeds for a much longer duration. 

00:28:45 James Venables 

That's right. 

00:28:47 Niall Riddell 

The other piece of tech that I know you guys have been working on which Is a particularly unique characteristic of your vehicles is the E axle. What's the E axle? Why did you develop it, and what benefits does it bring? 

 

00:29:01 James Venables 

So in terms of the axle, uh, what we've got is a self-contained rear axle with a differential and then we have two motors. In the case of Mercedes-Benz product mounted directly to that axle. What's the advantage of that? Well, you know. 

00:29:21 James Venables 

What we could have done, and what we'd learned from earlier products is we could have taken out the engine and gearbox. 

00:29:29 James Venables 

And then mounted a motor and maybe a transmission and still had like a prop shaft going to the rear axle. 

00:29:37 James Venables 

And we could have done that because it's simple and it gives you access to a wide range of products. If you want to have like a double drive rear axle, it's then quite simple. 

00:29:49 James Venables 

However. 

00:29:50 James Venables 

If you do that, that's at the expense of efficiency and that's what we found with the original E Canter. 

00:29:56 James Venables 

You know that had that set up, we had like a remote motor prop shaft. 

00:30:00 James Venables 

Rear axle and you just don't get the best efficiency through doing that, so therefore you're not getting the best range for for the operator and you're not getting the best battery packaging either. So if I think of it in two ways or two real advantages. 

00:30:20 James Venables 

The two advantages are battery packaging and the efficiency, and they're the things that enable us to give. 

00:30:30 James Venables 

A game changing range on products like the ELECTROS 600 where you know we we say at least 500 kilometres or just over 300 miles at 40 tonnes. 

00:30:43 James Venables 

And it gives us a massive competitive advantage. 

00:30:46 Niall Riddell 

And you've used this word packaging a couple of times, and I think this is quite an interesting area in your ecosystem when you get up close and personal with these vehicles, if you take the Arctic vehicle, you take all the trailer off. So the trailer is no good for batteries. 

00:31:02 Niall Riddell 

Packaging therefore means you have to fit the batteries into the structure of the. 

00:31:07 Niall Riddell 

And what are the challenges being that you've faced when you've had to like redesign these vehicles in this way? 

00:31:15 James Venables 

I think, UM, uh, you know what we want to do is we want to maximize the battery capacity on on the vehicle and the axle has allowed us to have that excellent packaging. So we. 

00:31:32 James Venables 

Have like 3. 

00:31:34 James Venables 

Batteries and they're they're under the the chassis rails on our across product and they they sit under there and. 

00:31:46 James Venables 

There's there's another advantage to to that packaging as well in the sense that you know, if there is a side impact on that vehicle, those batteries as well ever having a a high voltage shutdown from a safety perspective, if there's a side impact, but then they can slide on the carriers to some extent, the carriers deform. 

00:32:07 James Venables 

And absorb the energy rather than the battery being sort of wedged between the chassis and the point of impact. So there is kind of another advantage to to that as well. 

00:32:20 Niall Riddell 

So we we've kind of explored all the electrical tech, but presumably when You buy these  Trucks, you're not facing any disadvantage with other modern tech. You get all the the comforts. The creature comforts that they're a truck driver might expect. What kind of things do you include in your standard purchase setups? Is it all the the heating, the Apple car plate? Do you get that for trucks? 

00:32:41 Niall Riddell 

How does that work? 

00:32:43 James Venables 

Yeah. So in terms of the technology, I mean our our technology is is very focused around safety. You know, safety is one of the the, the number one differentiators of of our product versus our competitors and and always has been. So you know we offer. 

00:33:02 James Venables 

Things like active Brake Assist 5, which is an autonomous emergency braking system, but we do it with pedestrian recognition. So Niall, when you mentioned earlier about a truck in a in a, a a car. 

00:33:15 James Venables 

Charging area and and children. My immediate thoughts were well, actually our truck will stop for a walking pedestrian at speeds up to 50 kilometres an hour and and these are the types of technologies that differentiate us from our competitors. 

00:33:35 James Venables 

So really and truthfully, anything that you have on a diesel truck today, we also would put in the battery electric truck and. 

00:33:43 James Venables 

And make sure that the truck is as safe as possible. So that's kind of like one of the the key aspects to our products. In addition, we've got side guard assist so that if a truck is turning, then we're protecting cyclists and pedestrians from from being hit because we warn. 

00:34:04 James Venables 

That the driver, when there was some sort of obstruction in the turning arc of the of the vehicle. And then we've got the. 

00:34:15 James Venables 

Sort of aspects you mentioned. Yeah. Apple CarPlay, the human machine interface. It has to be sort of optimised for the for the driver. Make it as easy as possible. Yeah, everything that a driver could need to make his job as safe and easy as possible. Is there traffic sign assist. 

00:34:35 Chris Sass 

OK, I'm. I'm going to take us away from this, this Daimler commercial here and and go bit broader in our conversation because you're experts on EV's and heavy trucks it it sounds like they're they're coming. It sounds like they're already deployed in places. 

00:34:52 Chris Sass 

What is the next big technology leap that you see coming? That's going to really drive electric vehicles or hydrogen vehicles? Just alternative fuel, non combustion engine technology forward. What are we still missing? What is it that's coming in the near near future that we're going to see that's going to be transformative? 

00:35:10 Chris Sass 

And drive this forward faster. 

00:35:13 Ibrahim Kraria 

I guess being James sometimes say some of the answers we give are facts, some are opinion and I think this is where we would have different opinions. But I I need to think a bit through your questions if you, James, if you're ready, go ahead. 

00:35:25 James Venables 

I mean, for me, I'm I think the game. 

00:35:29 James Venables 

Anger. 

00:35:30 James Venables 

Will be infrastructure, to be honest, charging infrastructure, that's that's the thing that is, is really required at the moment and and you know I I suppose we're talking charging infrastructure of Bev, but when it comes to hydrogen then we you know in order for us to have a successful product, we're going to have to have. 

00:35:51 James Venables 

Production of green hydrogen at the right scale to give the right price. We're going to then have to have the supply chain in place. The logistics for that and the the refueling infrastructure and that's all gonna come together within the next four or five years and. 

00:36:09 James Venables 

If that happens, then I think we'll see a massive change and a massive shift towards 0 emission product and that's you know why we're. 

00:36:21 Chris Sass 

All right, James, I'm going to ask you to put your your neck out there. You said if that happens, what's your personal opinion in the next five years? Are we going to see it? It's a lot of moving parts you just described. 

00:36:31 James Venables 

I think it's an easier, honestly speaking from my perspective as my opinion, it's easier to solve when it comes to battery electric vehicles and charging infrastructure on the road network. 

00:36:46 James Venables 

Hydrogen. You know, if we think about this at the moment. 

00:36:51 James Venables 

You've kind of got to start putting some spades in the ground now pretty quickly for for the 2030 when we really sort of have a ramp up of production of hydrogen vehicles. Can it be done? I think it can be and we're working with energy majors all around the world to partner on hydrogen. 

00:37:12 James Venables 

Production, supply and infrastructure in the UK, we work with BP but. 

00:37:19 James Venables 

It there needs to be a rapid ramp up and and sort of a commitment to it now and that probably requires some help from government in terms of, you know incentives, regulatory framework as well. 

00:37:36 Chris Sass 

All right. So a little hedging. Ibrahim, you had some time to think about your take. What is going to be transformative from your? 

00:37:42 Ibrahim Kraria 

I think I Would like to split it between electric and Hydrogen technology, wise electric I think is already out there. Maybe what I would like to see is some vehicle to grip from trucks using their batteries on the trucks as grid stabilizers or for trading energy and so on. I think that would be that would. 

 

00:38:01 Ibrahim Kraria 

Destruct a little bit of the the the the situation but other than that from an electrical perspective it's just a matter of scale and economy and pushing out there. So we might see some innovation from a commercial perspective, but not necessarily a lot from a technology perspective on hydrogen, the only hydrogen fuel pumps I've seen in our airports, I think I would see the first one on the motorway In two years. So Let's see. 

00:38:26 Chris Sass 

Awesome. 

00:38:28 Chris Sass 

Well, I I I hope you're both right. I'm. I'm a bit more reserved in the hydrogen from a lot of conversations. I have a lot of people seem to be putting a lot of money and making big bets on it, but we haven't seen seen it there quite yet. So hopefully we do in the next four to five years. I want to thank you both for coming on insiders guide to energy. It's been a fantastic conversation. Thanks for being our guest today. We Appreciate. 

00:38:48 Ibrahim Kraria 

Thanks for having us. 

00:38:49 James Venables 

Yeah, thank you. It's been great. 

00:38:52 Chris Sass 

For our audience, we hope you've enjoyed another episode of the Insider's Guide to Energy EV series. If you want to see more content like this please like subscribe, add content and suggest guests to us and we'll see you again next time on the Insider's Guide to Energy EV series. Bye for now.