The only players in the trucking business who have been able to incorporate battery-powered vehicles into their fleets at a lower cost than diesel or gasoline counterparts are delivery services like FedEx, UPS, Amazon, etc. that use delivery vans instead of heavy trucks. An EV van now has a lower life-cycle cost than a comparable ICE vehicle ... but ONLY if the company managing the fleet is willing to accept a very important limitation of the EV: They have to assume that the EV vehicle has a residual value of $0 at the end of its life cycle in the fleet.
This is a critical concession, because conventional ICE trucks are sold to secondary and tertiary buyers after they are used by the large fleets that purchase them new. The EV vehicles can still function after its three-year or five-year cycle of use in the fleet is over, but EV technology is changing so rapidly that nobody in the trucking business is going to want an EV that is three or five years old.
This points to a major limitation on EVs that doesn't get a lot of attention right now. They function more like computers than heavy equipment over the course of their life cycles. This means they become functionally obsolete long before they physically break down. The end result is that like computers and other home/office electronics, the owners will reach a point where they can't even be given away even though they are still working fine.
A good point, and well said.
I suspect there is some residual value in smaller cars and trucks, because there are many secondary or tertiary uses for them.
But large trucks have far fewer niche uses. (such as driving around the family farm, or as a short range occasional vehicle)
” They function more like computers than heavy equipment over the course of their life cycles. This means they become functionally obsolete long before they physically break down. The end result is that like computers and other home/office electronics, the owners will reach a point where they can’t even be given away even though they are still working fine.”
My 10 year old computer works fine! Thanks for pointing out this.
“I have worked with trucking firms that are testing battery technology in their fleets even now, and I can assure you that nobody has produced a battery-powered Class 8 tractor that provides a lower life-cycle cost than a conventional diesel tractor.”
If true how do you explain your ignorance of EV dynamic braking going downhill?