Shashank Sripad, Venkatasubramanian Viswanathan
arXiv 16 Apr 2018 · Econometrics
arXiv:1804.05974 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text
There has been considerable interest in the electrification of freight transport, particularly heavy-duty trucks to downscale the greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions from the transportation sector. However, the economic competitiveness of electric semi-trucks is uncertain as there are substantial additional initial costs associated with the large battery packs required. In this work, we analyze the trade-off between the initial investment and the operating cost for realistic usage scenarios to compare a fleet of electric semi-trucks with a range of 500 miles with a fleet of diesel trucks. For the baseline case with 30% of fleet requiring battery pack replacements and a price differential of US$50,000, we find a payback period of about 3 years. Based on sensitivity analysis, we find that the fraction of the fleet that requires battery pack replacements is a major factor. For the case with 100% replacement fraction, the payback period could be as high as 5-6 years. We identify the price of electricity as the second most important variable, where a price of US$0.14/kWh, the payback period could go up to 5 years. Electric semi-trucks are expected to lead to savings due to reduced repairs and magnitude of these savings could play a crucial role in the payback period as well. With increased penetration of autonomous vehicles, the annual mileage of semi-trucks could substantially increase and this heavily sways in favor of electric semi-trucks, bringing down the payback period to around 2 years at an annual mileage of 120,000 miles. There is an undeniable economic case for electric semi-trucks and developing battery packs with longer cycle life and higher specific energy would make this case even stronger.
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| Reference | Intensity | Mentions | Sections | Main text | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nrcreport | unmatched citation key nrcreport | 1.000 | 9 | 4 | 100% |
| atri2017 | unmatched citation key atri2017 | 1.000 | 8 | 4 | 100% |
| davis2017transportation | unmatched citation key davis2017transportation | 1.000 | 7 | 3 | 100% |
| nptcreport | unmatched citation key nptcreport | 0.928 | 4 | 3 | 100% |
| sripad2017performance | unmatched citation key sripad2017performance | 0.928 | 4 | 3 | 100% |
| eia2018aeo | unmatched citation key eia2018aeo | 0.874 | 6 | 2 | 100% |
| icct_supert | unmatched citation key icct_supert | 0.843 | 3 | 3 | 100% |
| bnef | unmatched citation key bnef | 0.811 | 4 | 2 | 100% |
| eia2018electric | unmatched citation key eia2018electric | 0.737 | 3 | 2 | 100% |
| eiadiesel | unmatched citation key eiadiesel | 0.737 | 3 | 2 | 100% |
Showing the top 10 of 34 scored citations. 10 of these could not be matched to a bibliography entry, so only the citation key is shown.